Michael, You mention Plum for pegs, I bit the bullet before starting my "from scratch" lute and spent the money for David van Edwards CD course. He has a rather good discussion of the various woods, and nicely adds the North American available equivalents as well as he can assess them. He suggested Plum as an alternative for ribs for the first timer, but we don't have much Plum here. Cherry was his suggested N.A. substitute (and I'm using that). It seems they are the same (Plumus s.p.p.) genera (is that the level, I always forget the levels of taxonomy). Would cherry have the same characteristics for pegs as the plum you are using?
Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
