timothy motz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > Hi Lutenetters, > > I am in the middle of turning pegs for a new lute and I've started > having problems with them coming out of the shaver off-center
I just finished making my first pegs on an engine lathe, so I can sympathise with you. I made two sets, one in some imported mahogany-like wood the other in acer sacrum. Not my first choices of wood, I am taking advantae of what is to hand. I cut the taper directly on the lathe, after considerable fussing with the compound rest to get it aligned to the right angle. I also bored out a hardwood dowel and reamed it so I had a mandrel; I tested the compound rest angle by inserting the pegs into that dowel. First operation was to rough turn half the split blank, using a four-jaw and a live center in the tailstock - making the 'head' end. Rechucking into a three jaw, again with a live center supporting the end I rough turned, and then formed the tapered peg end; and also the decorative swellings and rings just above it, below the bulbosity of the head itself. I then chuck the bored-out dowel in the three-jaw, as a collet, and turn the head itself; again using the live center as long as possible to support the peg. The pegs in maple were to have little 'pimples' on the ends of the head, these were a challenge at first, they broke off until I discovered one has to work the head in a deliberate manner so it remains strong enough to resist being twisted apart by the cutting force. I use ordinary lathe bits for the roughing and the long taper, files handle the rest. No, not a productino setup, for that I would make custom knives to the profile of the head (or parts of it). Luckily my compound rest has a travel long enough to deal with most lute pegs, a lathe larger than my south bend 10K or one of those taper attachments is desirable for other reasons, and would be necessary fot larger pegs. It occurs to me that a peg shaver usually has one blade, if you turn the peg constantly round and round this should work fine, but if you oscillate the peg while cutting it is possible to favor one side over the other, and could skew the cutting axis. Perhaps if you rough turned on the lathe, and used the shaver to finish it off things would be more likely to be concentric? The 'mountain ash' seems to be less dense than the woods you were succesful with? Perhaps this allowed you to take heavier shavings, perhaps this places you at more risk of deviation from concentricity. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
