First Post - First Lathe - First Project

[Patrick McBride]

Just a quick introduction. I am a collector of sorts, lately a number of Classical Indian instruments have made it into the old cabinet of curiosities.

I am working on a restoration of an instrument called a Sarangi, and it requires tuning pegs. LOTS of tuning pegs (literally 41).

I thought I would share my first forays into this woodturning craft.

The market price for a set of replacement pegs seems pretty steep all in one chunk, so I took another route that would allow me to make my own.

In the beginning I showed a finished peg to a mentor, who commented "what a waste of wood".

His idea being that it was a shame to take a nice piece of Mahogany and whittle away 75% of it leaving basically the knob and a small shaft.

His take was to turn the knobs and shafts separately, to save wood. I also realized this brought the potential to make knobs from a variety of exotic woods.

So, here's my take on his take.

Start with some small Mahogany Stock, in this case 3/4" x 3/4" x 6" pieces to use for the shafts.

Find some exotic hardwood to use for knobs. For this first group I chose African Blackwood, similar to Ebony. 2" x 2" x 12"

I hope not to offend those of expertise and knowledge, I am admittedly a rank beginner. At least these instrument pegs are pretty simple as you can see.

Cheers and thanks in advance for all of the knowledge I hope to glean from this Forum.

Patrick

 

[Charlie Knighton]

there is no preferred path for your learning curve, I wood say do not cut down a tree for 41 knobs, but there is plenty of found wood
as you find more things you need you will progress somewhere on the learning curve.....enjoy what you do

 

[Andy Chen]

Patrick, I wonder what your mentor tells people who turn bowls out of one piece of wood about wasting. Probably >90% of wood ends up in the trash in that case.😉

 

[hockenbery]

Patrick, I wonder what your mentor tells people who turn bowls out of one piece of wood about wasting. Probably >90% of wood ends up in the trash in that case.😉

Andy, Heard of coring? 🙂

Wasting a log headed for the dump is a bit different than wasting ebony.

Al

 

[Andy Chen]

Andy, Heard of coring? 🙂
Al

Sorry, Al. I have not figured out a way to core my hollow forms.😀

 

[Patrick McBride]

there is no preferred path for your learning curve, I wood say do not cut down a tree for 41 knobs, but there is plenty of found wood
as you find more things you need you will progress somewhere on the learning curve.....enjoy what you do

CK, I intend to fully do just that. (Enjoy what I am doing)
Already I have started to grab odd bits and pieces and spin'em. True enough I wouldn't want to cut a tree down just for pegs! For the shafts I think I used the equivalent of a "pen blanks".

 

[hockenbery]

Sorry, Al. I have not figured out a way to core my hollow forms.😀

I thought you built them pre-cored... -🙂

 

[Patrick McBride]

Patrick, I wonder what your mentor tells people who turn bowls out of one piece of wood about wasting. Probably >90% of wood ends up in the trash in that case.😉

Well, I have to say there was a bit of a smile when he said "what a waste" looking at my peg model... and it was the trigger that made me give this a try. I am working on a set of Walnut knobs right now from leftovers too.🙂

 

[W Jack Young]

I've no idea what these are for . but from what I see in the pics
looks like you did a good job turning them
be careful wood turning is a bottomless pit 🙄
it;ll suck you in like a drug addiction once you
get started you can;t stop 😱
every time you see a piece of wood you;ll
be thinking ( WHAT COULD I TURN OUT OF THAT)😀

 

[Andy Chen]

Well, I have to say there was a bit of a smile when he said "what a waste" looking at my peg model... and it was the trigger that made me give this a try. I am working on a set of Walnut knobs right now from leftovers too.🙂

I wish I had seen this post sooner, Patrick. I don't claim to be an expert on any musical instrument by any stretch of imagination, but I think walnut is probable not going to be hard enough for tuning pegs. In fact I am not sure your original material of mahogany is hard enough. Actually, a reverse design, African blackwood peg and walnut knob might be better. You should be able to get a couple of pegs out of a pen blank. I have been able to get 10 African blackwood pen blanks for $20.

 

[Patrick McBride]

I wish I had seen this post sooner, Patrick. I don't claim to be an expert on any musical instrument by any stretch of imagination, but I think walnut is probable not going to be hard enough for tuning pegs. In fact I am not sure your original material of mahogany is hard enough. Actually, a reverse design, African blackwood peg and walnut knob might be better. You should be able to get a couple of pegs out of a pen blank. I have been able to get 10 African blackwood pen blanks for $20.

Thanks for the reply, Andy.
You know, I have been wrestling with that idea for a bit... I am wondering if better to have a slightly softer peg, so that the peg wears, and not the instrument body... with matched woods for shafts and body being optimal. In my head I am thinking less risky to turn a new peg than to attempt repairs to the instrument itself.
I am just an exploring hobbyist, so all knowledge is new and valuable.

I welcome your thoughts.

Blackwood shaft with walnut knob? <BLING!> http://www.aawforum.org/vbforum/images/smilies/smile.png

 

[Andy Chen]

Thanks for the reply, Andy.
You know, I have been wrestling with that idea for a bit... I am wondering if better to have a slightly softer peg, so that the peg wears, and not the instrument body... with matched woods for shafts and body being optimal. In my head I am thinking less risky to turn a new peg than to attempt repairs to the instrument itself.
I am just an exploring hobbyist, so all knowledge is new and valuable.

Again, I don't pretend to be an expert on any musical instrument, let alone an "exotic" sarangi, Patrick. I am only half-way familiar with the violin family. There the fingerboard is hard maple and the tuning pegs appear to be African black wood, which is harder than maple. From pictures of sarangi I found online, many have tuning pegs that appear to be some sort of black wood, but it's hard to tell what the "fingerboard" is made of. I see your point of using softer wood for the pegs to avoid damaging the fingerboard. However, I see a distinctive possibility of the pegs being gouged by the fingerboard and you might end up with a compressed ring on the peg that would be hard to make proper contact with the hole. On the other hand, if the pegs are (that much) harder so that they compress the wood fibers in the fingerboard, you still have a round hole, just maybe slightly larger. One more advantage with the African black wood is that it is a rosewood (genus Dalbergia) and rosewoods are oily, providing natural lubrication for easy tuning.

That's just my 2 cents' worth.

 

[Patrick McBride]

Again, I don't pretend to be an expert on any musical instrument, let alone an "exotic" sarangi, Patrick. I am only half-way familiar with the violin family. There the fingerboard is hard maple and the tuning pegs appear to be African black wood, which is harder than maple. From pictures of sarangi I found online, many have tuning pegs that appear to be some sort of black wood, but it's hard to tell what the "fingerboard" is made of. I see your point of using softer wood for the pegs to avoid damaging the fingerboard. However, I see a distinctive possibility of the pegs being gouged by the fingerboard and you might end up with a compressed ring on the peg that would be hard to make proper contact with the hole. On the other hand, if the pegs are (that much) harder so that they compress the wood fibers in the fingerboard, you still have a round hole, just maybe slightly larger. One more advantage with the African black wood is that it is a rosewood (genus Dalbergia) and rosewoods are oily, providing natural lubrication for easy tuning.

That's just my 2 cents' worth.

Interesting your note about the oily nature of rosewoods. For these instruments there is a lot of string tension, and in most cases a rosin or chalk is used to provide some "traction" for the peg shafts. Seems like an oily wood might be counterproductive to the effort.
Maintaining tune on these instruments has been compared to single handedley sailing a tall ship, with the myriad of strings tension and rigging to maintain for best results. As with any instrument, the ability to stay in tune is crucial, so slippery pegs are out, since they are friction based.

With that in mind, I am sure the general answer exists. May take a few years to settle it empirically.

Thanks Andy, a lifetime of collecting $.02's and I am surely a rich man.