Construction and Action
Traditionally, a single machine head consists of a cylinder or capstan, mounted at the center of a pinion gear, a knob or "button" and a worm gear that links them. The capstan has a hole through the far end from the gear, and the string is made to go through that hole, and is wrapped around the capstan. To complete the string installation, the string is tightened by turning the capstan using the tuning knob. The worm gear ensures that the capstan cannot turn without a movement on the knob; it also allows precise tuning.
Banjos usually employ a different mechanism using planetary gears - in this case the knob and the capstan both rotate on the same axis. A few guitars (e.g. the original Gibson Firebird, early Gibson basses and Mario Maccaferri's plastic instruments) have used this design.
The guitarist adjusts the tension of the various strings using the knobs so that they are correctly tuned: a higher tension yields a sharper pitch, a lower tension a flatter pitch. Typical tensions for steel-string acoustic guitars with "light" tension strings are 10.5 kgf (23.3 lbf, 103 N) to 13.8 kgf (30.2 lbf, 135 N).
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