On the question of bushings, these are a standard repair for violins. The ebony will always wear the maple to produce bigger and ultimately irregular holes. The first step, when the pegs are going too deep into the peg box is to ream the holes true, and shave down peg blanks to fit. When the holes are too big to allow new pegs to be shaved, it's time for bushing.
The thing is that a frequent choice for bushings is box. This being harder, it will not wear as fast as the maple, and being pale it can be touched in reasonably well to hide it. A more logical choice would be the same wood as the pegs, which would give minimal wear, but if that choice were ebony it would be regarded as unaesthetic. These plastic bushings would seem to be manufactured, which may account for the size problem. Making bushings from an appropriate wood is considerably less complicated than making pegs, and the thickness could be adjusted to suit the pegbox. At a push, they could be considered decorative. Tony ----- Original Message ----- From: "Leonard Williams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Dana Emery" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 11:19 PM Subject: Re: Pegs, revisited > A good number of years ago a bass violist I played with had some > kind of red plastic bushings installed in the peg holes of the tuning head > of her viol. I believe the idea was to reduce wear on the pegs and produce > a smoother tuning action. It was a costly job, since the peg holes each had > to be reamed out several millimeters more (in diameter) to accommodate the > bushings. The bushings were rather heavy: a lute tuning head would simply > be too slim to accomodate such extra material (IMHO). > > Regards, > Leonard > > On 3/8/05 1:27 PM, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > Jon Murphy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > > > >> I agree with the comments on friction and > >> Delrin. Guitar tuning machines would be a good solution for the lute, and > >> shouldn't affect the sound. > > > > delrin is a bad idea on several grounds, one not yet mentioned, it is soft > > enough > > to be subject to surface wear, it will loose its slickness from that wear, and > > I > > suspect is just not the right material. It has been around long enough for > > its > > properties to have been evaluated by the likes of Martin, Gibson, et al; they > > arent taking any advantage of it, I think in that lies a clue. Delrin nuts, > > yes, > > I see them on the market, but not pegs. > > > > We have discussed guitar machine pegs for use on lute before; the opinion > > reached > > was weight in the head is a bad idea. > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > >
