Dear All, Apologies - probably this should go just to the lutebuilder list (if it still exists) but I can't remember the address.
I'm trying to reduce my use of ebony, partly for reasons of authenticity and partly because I simply don't like getting covered in black dust! So the question is, what kind of stains could the Old Ones have used and what could I use now? The items and requirements in question are: 1. Pegs - probably made from plum or holly - need to have good depth of stain to allow small adjustments when fitting. 2. Bridges - probably made from pear or plum - no need for great penetration. (I would never dream of making a bridge out of ebony, of course - at the moment I use pear, stained with indian ink or acrylic black, the latter being obviously the most authentic alternative!) 3. Fillets between ribs - probably made from sycamore - good penetration needed and absence of bleeding essential! The nice thing about ebony is it doesn't bleed and it's the same colour all the way through, but I think the Old Ones used it rarely, if at all. 4. Neck - I rather like the idea of a thin dark stain, not uniformly black, on a beech neck. I wondered if any dark stain could be added to a drying oil like linseed oil so that one ended up with a more or less matt finish which did not lose its colour when scratched by fret knots, etc. I'm mindful of the fact that the little treble lute in Vienna (C39) has a beech neck (though the dark colour may just be due to age) and also of the Mary Burwell lute tutor whose author is very much against veneering the neck with ebony because it's "cold" and the frets slip too easily - also he/she seems very keen on keeping the weight to a minimum. Avoiding ebony (except for the fingerboard) could result in a considerable weight saving/change in balance for an 11c lute. Your thoughts, please! Martin To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
