On Thursday, November 29, 2007 2:44 PM Martyn Hodgson wrote:
John Cousens always said it was from the use of watch keys - he lent me some when stringing a Preston guittar and they fitted perfectly. My supposition would therefore be that the same people who made watch mechanisms in 18thC London (centre of the industry)made these tuners to P's specifications.
By the way, the original question was:
... Where did he (if it was Preston) get the idea from?
And one would not need a "centre of the industry" to invent a screw with an eye (that how they call it in bows) which was already around in large numbers at least 50 good years (perhaps more, I'm guessing here) before Preston. Modern bow screw, as well as its earlier predecessor, has one of its ends square (this fits in the tip by which the screw is rotated) and it can fit perfectly, if necessary, in a watch key. Watch keys come either in single sizes or several sizes combined in one unit. So what would be actually left for Preston (or whoever that may be) is to mount the screw and eye thign in brass fittings, and that's it. Whether Preston himself made the fittings or watch makers did it for him doesn't really matter here. The idea was there already ... There is even more to the story. I came across a number of French cistres (some with seven-courses) which had watch key tuners without Preston mark on them. Were they copied after Preston's, smuggled out of England and rebranded ...? I very much doubt it. Even the instruments themselves could have been made earlier than those with Preston branded tuners. PS disclaimer: I'm not trying to steal the invention out of Preston's hand; he was a nice guy and made great English guittars. I'm only figuring out where the idea could have come from. Alexander To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
