79 replies to this topic

[lyndon]

we all have our methods of fitting pegs, and 100% contact between peg and pegbox is a goal we dont always meet, and if we do, its a rather time consuming, tedious process to do so

not so when i get an older violin where the pegs have been fit for 50-100yrs, i see the shiny area showing contact between the peg and the pegbox with perfect 100% contact, and the antique pegs always seem to turn a little smoother than newly fit ones, why?? because decades of turning have made the pegs wear in to a perfect fit

until now i was content to fit pegs with 80-90% contact, with the idea they would wear in over time, but yesterday i came up with a novel idea; id heard of people who sit there turning and turning their pegs till the friction wears them in to a perfect fit, id tried it but id never had the patience to do it long enough to see concrete results

so i came up with the idea, and im sure im not the first to think of it, straight after you have rough dry fit the pegs with the peg shaver, before you cut the ends off and with the end of the peg sticking out mounted in the pegbox, the end youre going to cut off flush with the pegbox, pretend its a drill bit and mount it into your electric drill, making sure the drill is not close enough to the pegbox to leave marks, then run the drill only for a couple of seconds spinning the peg in its pegbox holes, and gently pulling the peg further into the pegbox, you only need to pull the peg 1/2-1mm into the pegbox while the drill is spinning it, and voila, you have a perfectly burnished area right where the peg contacts the pegbox showing 100%contact, and perfect roundness for both the peg and the pegbox hole (of course im assuming your peg reamer, and peg shaver are working optimally)

in other words youve simulated the wear of 100year old perfectly fitting antique pegs in a few seconds, just like really well fit antique pegs youll find the pegs to be more slippery and turn easier than new pegs usually do, youll have to use more gripping chalk(or other) with the soap to make the pegs grip enough and turn slowly (just like you would with antique pegs), youll want to fit your pegs from the peg shaver about 1mm longer from the pegbox to the collar, to compensate for the 1mm your going to pull the pegs in, making them shorter

you could even make a custom drill attachment that fit over the head of the pegs, and use it on pegs that have already had their ends cut off

dont try this the first time on anything expensive, and i wouldnt really reccomend it on fragile, or cracked pegboxes, and make sure youre really experienced with the technique and anything that can go wrong, before you try it on anything expensive.

this may not even be superior to your current method, if youve got a really good one, but i can guarantee its a very quick method and works a lot better than my previous method of fitting pegs, just thought id share this, it was pretty exciting how well it worked, and how easy it is

the biggest thing is to be careful not to overdo it by pulling the peg into the pegbox more than you have to, then you could get a little ridge on either side of the burnished area

[Michael_Molnar]

lyndon,

This does work, indeed. Years ago I saw a demonstration by Evan Smith who used to post here on MN. He used a hand drill fitted with an adapter to hold the peg head. He also applied a little peg dope. We watched in amazement (and amusement) as the peg spun smoking hot. The result is as you report - a perfect fit.

Thanks for bringing this up.

Mike

[lyndon]

thank you mike. i didnt think i was the first one, david burgess mentioned testing pegs and peg compounds by simulating wear with a drill, thats probably where i got the idea....

i wasnt producing any smoke though, it takes very little actual drilling

maybe my contribution is the simplicity of putting the shaft of the peg in the drill chuck

[ctviolin]

lyndon,

This does work, indeed.

Thanks for bringing this up.

Mike

Interesting observation Lyndon.

Yes, I agree with this practice also. Good advice, if done carefully.

I used to do this too, until one day I got my shaver perfectly adjusted for the taper of the peg hole reamer... (being a 'type A' doesn't hurt)

Still, I belive that the fact is that spinning the peg in the hole a bit, mechanically, along with some form of mildly abrasive - mildly lubricating peg dope, can cause the peg to "seat" where it will eventually "permanently" (nothing's really permanent) seat by turning and tuning by hand.

Even having full wear marks show up at the start, during the fitting process, misses the pressure aspect of fitting the pegs, which is mostly there but not really all there in a new fit - there is the "wear factor" of seating the peg properly, that seems to happen quickly when seating new pegs, letting the peg run further out the other side of the peg box a bit. Spinning the fit peg in the tapered hole, causes this to happen almost immediately and allows the peg a bit better length trimming at the start.

I would advise against trying this with no peg lube. As the peg can easily lock and split in an instant.

[lyndon]

you will find after using this method the wood grain is already compressed, so the peg doesnt go much deeper when you do the final fit and dope, like it used to go deeper with my old method, because the wood wasnt compressed

i think peg dope wood just slows down the whole drilling process, which might give you more control, but wood to wood contact is going to wear much quicker, than wood to peg doped wood, so you would have to drill for a longer time, i would guess

the down side to using peg dope is that peg dope can make 90% contact look like 100%, at least with wood to wood contact you know exactly when you get 100% contact, and dont have to worry that the peg dope is filling in some low spots

[Bill Yacey]

This does sound like a good idea, burnishing the holes with the peg.

I can just picture an overzealous newbie setting the pegbox and scroll on fire from the friction, and when the smoke clears finding a charred stump where the scroll used to be!

[~ Ben Conover]

What's wrong with using a decent reamer and a peg shaver ?
It's quite fast enough and seems to work very well.

[ctviolin]

What's wrong with using a decent reamer and a peg shaver ?
It's quite fast enough and seems to work very well.

Nothing at all.

The thing I find, sometimes, is that the peg which has been adjusted with a proper shave, to fit a hole made with a proper reamer, can still move into the hole so that the peg sticks out of the small hole of the peg hole end in a rather short time.

One fix for it is to shave the peg ends after a short while, to fit the way you would like. And the other method I know of to get this slightly time consuming process done a bit quicker, is to do it by finally seating the peg another way.

...like this.

With a reamer and taperer that are matched properly to start, the difference isn't really large, but it does exist and can be delt with a number of ways.

[lyndon]

What's wrong with using a decent reamer and a peg shaver ?
It's quite fast enough and seems to work very well.

you will notice i said this method assumes you have a decent reamer and peg shaver to start with, but unless your gods gift to violin restoration, a perfectly set reamer and shaver do not give you true 100% contact without further fine tuning

on top of that even if you did have 100% contact, you wouldnt have the burnished, compressed, worn in characteristic that antique pegs get from years of use, that this method has

ct explains part of this issue well in previous post

[Jeffrey Holmes]

The thing I find, sometimes, is that the peg which has been adjusted with a proper shave, to fit a hole made with a proper reamer, can still move into the hole so that the peg sticks out of the back of the peg hole end in a rather short time.

I honestly doubt if I'll try the drill thing... though it sounds kinda' fun... but you can avoid what CT mentioned by running the reamer (a good one) backwards the last mm or two. It burnishes the holes quite well.

[Don Noon]

I honestly doubt if I'll try the drill thing... though it sounds kinda' fun... but you can avoid what CT mentioned by running the reamer (a good one) backwards the last mm or two. It burnishes the holes quite well.

That's what I do, and in conjunction with peg tapers turned on a lathe, the contact is very good. But I'll probably try the drill thing anyway. There was that Chinese method of hole sizing by using a red-hot tapered iron that sounded interesting too. But first I'll have to find a Strad to try it on...

[Jeffrey Holmes]

But first I'll have to find a Strad to try it on...

I'll see about getting you a loaner.

I just use my Alberti shavers. Easy to adjust and they cut extremely reliably. No complaints with fit/use/wear.

[~ Ben Conover]

' running the reamer (a good one) backwards the last mm or two. '

- works well.

[Michael_Molnar]

I like lyndon's use of the peg in the drill chuck. Clever.

I find that my shaver does not always match the taper of the reamer to the precision I want: not 1/30 but 1/30.0 . What lyndon does is take the fit to the next level.

The reason Smith's peg smoked was due to the dope compound that melted right into the pegbox wood.

[Michael_Molnar]

Reading Ben's and Jeffrey's remarks, I will invest in a new reamer.

[jacobsaunders]

I always use my older (dull) reamer to go backwards, burnishing the last mm or so, which might have something to do with scottish DNA. A new reamer is always nice though!

[martin swan]

Peg-hole burnisher
for the non-Scots who don't keep their blunt reamers ....

[lyndon]

I honestly doubt if I'll try the drill thing... though it sounds kinda' fun... but you can avoid what CT mentioned by running the reamer (a good one) backwards the last mm or two. It burnishes the holes quite well.

once again im already starting with final reaming done burnishing backwards, but the reamed pegbox hole tends to be rounder, than the roundness (or lack thereof) of the pegs straight out of the shaver, some people try turning the pegs backwards in the shaver, but even if using both methods it doesnt have the 100% accuracy and compression aspect of the drill treatment, i assume compressed burnished wood is stronger and less likely to wear, and certainly less likely to compress and let the peg stick out more and more over time because of compressing

actually jefferey, working as you do on a lot of priceless antiques, this is just the kind of method i would not be able to recommend to you at this time, without much further research and testing on much cheaper violins, just one cracked pegbox on a 500,000 violin would easily negate all the positive effects you got on violins that didnt crack, until we find out if there is even the possibility of the spinning peg seizing and cracking the pegbox, caution is the word IMO

i wish there was an easy way to use a hand drill instead of electric, if you had two sets of hands it would be quite simple and seemingly safer and more controllable, youd instantly sense if the peg was seizing up and be able to stop before any damage could occur, i would think

[Conor Russell]

I learned to fit pegs with a little dry soap, and a wooden peg shaper. We used long strips of thin card as shims , to adjust the taper. We then turned the peg in the hole a few times, and touched the bands on the peg to the lower lip. If the peg fits, both bands will be slightly warm; if one is cold, it isn't making contact as well as the other. I hope this makes sense!

Also, I always use a pointier reamer than the now standard 1/30. 1/25 I think, and the pegs wear through more slowly, and seem to work better in our climate.

Conor

[jacobsaunders]

Peg-hole burnisher
for the non-Scots who don't keep their blunt reamers ....

These bloody new-rich Scots, armed to the teeth