It strikes me that these problems are the result of having long pegboxes and stretchy strings. In my experience of using it, gut has much less stretch than nylgut (or nylon for that matter) or the overspun basses that we use nowadays - so this probably wasn't nearly as much of a problem for the old ones as it is for us.
It does make me wonder, though, if it's worth considering lutes with two pegboxes ( somewhat extended basses) for 10c and up. This would give a shorter (7c or 8c) main pegbox meaning there's less likelihood of the strings stretching between the nut and the peg and a second advantage for ourselves is that the lute case would be a couple of inches shallower and hence easier to pack on planes, trains and so on. Bill See [1]http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jan-molenaer-a-young-man -and-woman-making-music for what I'm talking about. From: Herbert Ward <wa...@physics.utexas.edu> To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Monday, 2 January 2012, 6:49 Subject: [LUTE] Non-stretchy pegbox leaders. We had a discussion similar to this three years ago (Dec 7 2008). However, I'd like to revisit the subject with my question rephrased to focus more closely on my problem. Stretching of strings between the nut and the peg is causing me severe difficulty in tuning -- I can turn the peg 90 or 120 degrees with no response in the pitch. Lubricating the nut is of course a possibility. But I'd also like to try replacing the portion of the string between nut and peg with a leader of some material which (a) does not stretch, (b) can be tied securely and easily to the string, (c) will not slip on the peg, (d) will not damage anything, (e) is strong enough, and (f) is readily available. Does anyone have experience in this? To get on or off this list see list information at [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jan-molenaer-a-young-man-and-woman-making-music 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
