Dana, Very informative Dana, thank you. BTW, I'm not sure why I said that the pegbox and the peg wouldn't grab if they were the same material. I was thinking of wood, and as that is (more or less, depending on the wood) hygroscopic then both pegbox and peg will swell and and shrink under the same circumstances. It must have been late when I typed that. I concur as to the different materials for smooth bearings (and have no intent of using anything but wood for my pegbox and pegs). One doesn't want to wear both materials, one wants to wear the easier replaced part. I first met that issue when I bought one of the first Toyotas (car) imported here ( an el cheapo then, but well engineered - they were opening the market). The speedometer broke after only a couple of years. I popped the drive cable and found a nylon gear that was completely worn out. I went to the dealer and complained, he sold me a new gear for a few bucks and explained that it was designed to wear out. After all, if the other gear wore out (the one attached to the drive shaft) one would have to pull the transmission apart to replace it. Better to make the easily accessible gear of wearable material so the internal one would be "forever".
I think I'd rather need to make a new peg than replace the pegbox. I haven't chosen the wood for my pegbox yet, but I'll keep that in mind when I do. Your comments solicited. As to the guitar tuning machines, I still don't think they would affect the sound. I can't see the weight of the head having an effect on the resonance. A way to test would be to play an example of each on one's lap like a mountain dulcimer - but where would one find two equal lutes, one with machines and one with pegs. It is irrelevant to me as I'm not considering it - but I might get a chance to experiment. My little charango that I bought from Bolivia for a price I couldn't equal just in buying the wood has guitar machines. The weight in the head is so awful for the balance that I use a saxaphone neck strap to hold up the head. Someday I may try to convert it to pegs, hadn't thought of that before, but it could be fun. It only cost me $60, and the carved body is the beautiful part so fussing with the pegbox wouldn't ruin it. Good point on the kinks at the bend points, but I think it is usually gradual enough in retuning that it is a small factor. But I note you mention "gently stroking the strings" to equalize tension along the string. I wonder if we are thinking of the same thing. Years ago, when I was playing guitar nightly in saloons, I would break a string at the most inconvenient time. Nothing will make a new string hold pitch as it stretches and settles, but my technique to speed the process was to take my thumb and forefinger and make "micro stretches" of the new string by running them up and down the string with rapid squeezes, perhaps a half inch of string stretch between the two fingers. Admittedly I was making local stretches, which should make the string inconsistant over the length - but as I was doing it quickly I was hitting random points and probably made a relatively uniform stretch. Whatever, it worked. I could stretch the string about a half tone with a couple of passes, then tune up. Then repeat as necessary. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
