Making Lute Pegs
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- Опубликовано: 26 авг 2024
- Luthier and musician Clive Titmuss shows how lute pegs are turned on the lathe, with a detailed discussion of the process, and then he fits them to the peg head of a new archlute. Please leave us a comment. We love to hear from you! You might also enjoy;
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Thank you for watching.
Thanks for making this video! It is really helpful to see the tools you made.
Thanks a lot! It actually took quite a while to make these tools and I developed this method over many years. I've had comments asking me why not use a copy lathe, but I don't like the look of mechanically perfect pegs. The use of shaped chisels was an idea that I got from a Fine Woodworking article about making chess pieces. It was easily adapted for making pegs. A scraped finish is also much better than a sanded one when turning. Thanks for your comment, Clive
Thank you for the kindness taking off the sound of the torno. I really appreciated it. Your videos are amazing and very helpful!
Hi Luis, I'm glad you enjoy the videos!
So, that looks like more than 30 minutes for one peg. For a 13c baroque lute, that must be done 24 times. No matter what you’re charging, that’s a labor of love.
Thank you for this video, you have so much patients to achieve the end result. Stay safe from Oz.
Hi John, Glad you like the video! Thanks for your comment.
Congratulations Titmuss, help a lot
Glad to help!
No words, what a beautiful exact work.
Thank you very much!
Thanks a lot
It is so relaxing and helpful to watch. Thank you
Thanks very much! Glad you like the video.
Also "these peg sharpeners are surprisingly hard to adjust"
I'd be surprised if they weren't super hard to adjust, it looks like setting up a hand plane blade, but without a well-machined mechanism to adjust it.
It just takes a little perseverance. Sometimes I use a plane hammer (small hammer with brass head) to advance and withdraw the blade. It's of crucial importance that the plane blade be ground perfectly straight and not with a slight curve as is usually done for planing. For this I use a steel lapping plate, SiC abrasive and a small jig. Once adjusted, they work perfectly and are very precise.
Yeah.... wouldn't you want a somewhat softer wood for a peg? Not splintery like a conifer, but soft-ish? You want it to elastically deform when you press it in to the pegbox so that it has good grip.... sort of like a spring washer makes a bolt far more resilient to forces?
The first quality that a turning wood has to have is that it must be easy to machine, so woods that have a high percentage of oil and a hardness of 35 to 40 on the RC scale. Woods that work best for this are like rosewoods. Boxwood is excellent for turning but a bit too hard for pegs. The best median woods are fruitwoods; apple, peach, pear, plum. They are surprisingly oily and dense, and have a little bit of compliance that helps them to fit the hole better. I wouldn't recommend any "softwood" (conifers) for turning pegs.
@@EarlyMusicStudio1 Interesting.... Wood database lists pear as harder than hard maple. BUT! It lists the elastic modulus as a lot lower for pear. Fascinating. So, maybe woods with low elasticity but high hardness?
Maple is also listed as being a lot stronger. So, pear is a lot harder, but maple is stiffer and stronger. Though, hard maple is about the same stiffness as spruce for significantly more mass.
I wish Wood Database had measurements for damping coefficient, it would make hunting down other obscure tonewood candidates a lot easier, but that's a side note... lol.
@@hellomate639I've had a lot of variety between samples. Some pear is very hard and close-grained; boxwood is variable according to the altitude where it grew. Northern fruitwoods are harder than southern.
Thanks for this fascinating series of documentary. I'm wondering about the peg sharpeners and the difference between numbers. Are the numbers different diameters or is it the angle of the sharpening blade in relation to the peg body that is different. I have so enjoyed this time I spent in your workshop.
The numbering of the peg shapers is arbitrary, going from smallest to largest. It is based on the penetration of the reamer into a block of wood. The block is planed from the top until it looks like a pencil sharpener, tangent to the circumference of the peg diameter. I made six sizes; the smallest diameter of the peg is about 4 mm and the largest is about 7.5 mm. The reamer is also used on the peg box and the pegs are graduated in size. Smaller lutes generally have smaller pegs, and bigger baroque lutes have the largest pegs. I'm glad you like the videos, and thanks for watching!
hello! My name is Ariel, I have been following your RUclips channel for a long time, and I am very grateful for the information and your beautiful work, your outreach work was very important in my work on ancient instruments. If you allow me, I hope I'm not impertinent, I would like to know about the peg shapers, I tried to make them but since I don't have more indications than the ones you show in the video I'm not sure I built them well. If you could give me any indication of how you made them I would be very grateful. A big hug from Argentina.
HOw wonderful! Thank-you very much for your comments.
I will describe the making of the shaped chisels, an idea that I got from and Fine Woodworking article about making chess pieces, years ago.
You buy some cheap chisels, made from not so great steel, a bit softer, not the super hard ones. Carbon steel is great, A2 or PVM 11 are too hard.
You need a wheeled grinder with a diamond dresser, a tool which re-shapes the wheels. They don't have to be very expensive wheels either. Aluminum Oxide wheels are nice, so are the grainy Silicon carbide ones. YoO dress the wheel so that it is a curve, slightly SMALLER than the shaper you want to make.
Then mark your shape on the chisels (plain round, s curve, ball shaped), they will have diameter slightly LARGER than the peg head, if round, for example. Then using these stones you slowly grind and cool to make a smooth curve at the chisel's tip, where it is already ground at 25 degrees. Let the new grind be around 35 degrees, you want a scraper, not a cutter. Then using a Dremel or other hand tool (files, diamond file, chain saw file) you refine the edge so that it leaves no marks.
When turning, you rough out the ball shape with a gouge, very safe, then scrape and shape according to your peg design. I ended up making about twenty of these, for different ball sizes, for pegs that have a "skirt", or ones that need a kind of lance shape, convex, etc.
Also, when you finally finish the peg leave the ball finial until the end to keep the diameter a large as possible to reduce the risk of splitting it from the lathe, a frequent problem. The scrapers do not make a shaving, but more like a dust, so not aggressive. Some shapers should not use the tool rest, you hold it free hand, even looping a gloved finger around the rotating work for support when diameter is small.
The main part of shaping the peg is still done with basic turning tools, gouge, skew chisel, square chisel, etc. For small pegs, smaller chisels work better, but the scrapers can do about 30 percent of the surface at once.
Allways work with the grain. Use woods that are best for pegs: box, plum, pear. Reject blanks whose grain is less than perfectly straight, because there will be problems when you chisel the faces.
Finish with a light sander drum on the drill press, soak the pegs in oil, fit them only after a few days of drying to be sure of final dimensions.
I hope that helps, and thanks again, best wishes, Clive
@@EarlyMusicStudio1 very clear! Thank you very much for taking the time to explain everything so extensively and well!
what you do is a great contribution!
Did you make some shapers successfully? Clive
Great guide. However, what's the technical difference between the different peg shavers? Does each number correspond to a different cm span on your reamer? Why not just make a single shaver with a long blade and a hole made from the full span of your reamer?
That's a very intelligent question! The answer is firstly that one can't really make a very long bladed shaver, ans secondly, you really are only shaving the part of the peg which fits into the pegbox. Also one might observe that wood is not metal, and precise fitting is never obtainable by purely machining the wood to precise dimensions. To some extent, compression of both peg and hole are something that is better accounted for with sized shavers.
I make them by first drilling out a block, reaming that hole to a specified point (more or less penetration of the reamer, and they should overlap, making, for a baroque lute, six or seven sizes), then planing the block to expose the upper tangent to the hole. Then the plane blade, which is sharpened straight with a stone or lapping plate, is bolted to the top, over the hole. Just like a pencil sharpener. Fine adjustments can be made with plane hammer(projection) and pieces of masking tape (if you planed off too much). The peg shaper must work perfectly, be very sharp, and you must work slowly with some lubricant (soap stone powder or peg dope) to make sure you don't shear off the head.
Other makers do blocks and plane as I have described, but use a chisel blade hand-held to do this final shaping, but is not very precise, though it's fine for repairs.
If you cut off too much material, you must shim the hole, which you can do with CA glue applied to the hole, then lightly re-ream. Another way is to use fine sandpaper fitted to the hole with the abrasive on the outside. This works fine for repairs as well, but sometimes you should glue the paper, once again CA glue works well. I use the reamer to clamp the paper till dry, or use a dummy peg which is waxed.
thanks, Clive
@@EarlyMusicStudio1Thanks for the great explanation.
How are Heart Shaped pegs made ?
They are usually carved.
Wat voor een soort hout gebruikt u?
Hi Hieronymus, I use boxwood (buxus) from the Pyranées and plum (prunus) or fruit wood for pegs. Thanks for watching!
Hello hello, can i ask what size this lathe has? I would like to make the pegs myself but I've never use a lathe before. Thanks
Hello! It's a Taig micro-lathe used in the aerospace industry for machining. I made several adaptations to make it suitable for pegs. Using a full-size lathe for pegs is a problem because of the amount of power. A small lathe is better. Another important factor is the choice of woods. Boxwood is probably best for a beginner; as you will find that maple and cherry are not hard enough for pegs. My personal favourite is plum but it's hard to find. You may also notice that I used quite a number of shop-made tools. You will find that conventionally sized tools are usually too large. It is better to use small tools, available at Lee Valley or other specialist suppliers. Thanks for watching!
@@EarlyMusicStudio1 oh! Thank you so much for the info. This is good for a start. I'll have a look into it. I've been using pear wood for rosettes, do you think i can use that wood for pegs? Also seen them made with sycamore. Ebony is really good but i prefer to use as less exotic woods as possible.
Regards
@@jesusmolleja6071 Ebony is said to be the worst possible wood for pegs (Mace 1672?) and pear wood is good but a bit too soft, and sometimes it goes out of round. The woods with the best reputation are; plum, boxwood, rosewood and other fruitwoods stained black to mimic ebony. I have some plumwood and boxwood for sale here; facebook.com/marketplace/item/940293453754086 facebook.com/marketplace/item/6263374987050229
Do you coat the entire peg in tung oil? Wouldn't that lessen the friction?
Yes, you soak the whole peg in penetrating, drying tung oil and then wipe it off carefully and let it dry. After that you can polish it with a buffer.
@@EarlyMusicStudio1 Interesting. Would you do that for all types of wood you make pegs with, or just pear/plum? Would you do that with rosewood?
Rosewood is about 25% oil so it's not necessary to soak it; you can just polish it directly. Any fruit wood should be oiled.@@twokool4skool129
Hi Clive, thanks for another great, informative video! Great to see the whole process from blank to perfect fit. Is that a standard sized violin reamer you're using? (And would you use the same size on every instrument?)
Hi James, glad you like the video. I use a special lute reamer (one degree angle) which was given to me. I think they are available in England and Germany. Smaller instruments are reamed less deeply for a small-diameter peg, and larger instruments are reamed more for bigger pegs. The maximum diameter for lute pegs is about 7 mm, for violin pegs it's 8 mm and guitar pegs are 9 mm. The lute peg heads are graduated sizes.
@@EarlyMusicStudio1 Thanks! I only have a standard violin 2-degree reamer but it probably means the pegs will end up being about 7.4mm at their thickest on a 7-course lute, which, as you've confirmed, seems a little on the thick side. I'm trying to avoid an expensive purchase of a smaller specialist reamer, but, as I've found already in this process, forking out the cash is probably going to lead to less regret than trying to make do with the wrong tool...
@@jamesluff8415 You can use your violin peg reamer if you just use the tip, but yes, it's great to have the right tool. Be careful that the reamer doesn't cut too aggressively, especially in maple. A multi-bladed reamer should be slightly dulled, and generate mostly sawdust rather than shavings. Thicker pegs will work fine in a lute but not in a baroque lute, where they will drive the lutenist mad!
@@EarlyMusicStudio1 Thanks. It's good to know that it can work for this instrument at least. To be honest, I've been putting it off a while as it is a little daunting trying something out for the first time on an almost finished instrument...
@@jamesluff8415 I can understand that! Could you try a sample first? Keep in mind that you will have to remove a bit of material from the peg to fit it. I use a device that looks like a pencil sharpener, which you can see in the video. It's made using the reamer, a block of wood and a plane blade. If you have more questions you know where to find me!
Yet once again, Tapered via "Hit or Miss" method. You guys just seem to have an aversion to using a Copy/Duplicator attachment!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi George, that's a lot of exclamation marks :) Rather than being duplicated, the pegs are graduated in size and custom fitted to each hole. Thanks for watching!
Thanks a lot
Glad you liked it!
@@EarlyMusicStudio1 do You offer Luthier course or sell oud plans?
@@ellobosolitario19 No, I don't, but you can get lots of good information from the Guild of American Luthiers...have a look at their website.