John Mardinly has nailed it. My otherwise fabulous 8 course has an early prototype installation of these things. On my lute they are far more bother than they are worth (came with; this lute was a quick purchase of an already built lute. Bought in spite the pegheadz). Changing strings is, indeed, a tedious nightmare; esp. the 1st course which must dive into the pegbox at an unfortunate angle due to no provision for an "outside" hole on these things. Broken more 1st courses (not gut!) than not, until I ran the string to the LAST peg! The 4/1 turning ration is good only if your nut is slick enough to avoid the string sticking that is more likely to occur from slow, incremental turning speed- which does, admittedly, make very fine tuning easier for those who need it- WHEN the nut is smooth & flawless. Beginners, (esp. multi-course instruments). Anyone with arthritis &/or other finger health issues. But, it slows me up, and no doubt many other players. There is one argument against the planetary gear/pegheads that I totally reject. It is the one that says "They are not HIP, not traditional, the Old Dudes didn't use them..." Bullcrap! That line of judgment leads, of course, to no synthetic strings. And that would mean no really usable bass strings beyond 6 course. (Only a very few of us still have working loaded GUT basses from Mimmo. And the loading itself has not been totally cleared for Kosher consumption.) So- I hate them, but others love them- including one of my Baroque lute students; on his 13 course Burkholtzer copy from Dan Larson's workshop. He has yet to replace his synthetic strings with the gut set that he also ordered, and we have yet to change a single string. Very smooth nut, and on his lute they do work perfectly. Just too many turns of the screw for my taste, but he loves them and it's HIS lute! Dan On 2/11/2017 10:02 AM, John Mardinly wrote:
I have planetary tuners called ââ¬ËPegheads'. They were installed in my 1970 David Rubio 8 course lute by Mel Wong during a restoration he did a year and a half ago. Let me share some observations: 1) The original friction pegs had gone very out of round and were very difficult to use. My understanding of this process is that it is caused by anisotropic expansion and contraction of the woods, which is extreme in regions that have extreme changes in humidity with the seasons. The 'Pegheads' seem immune to this problem. I know this can be avoided by regularly moving the pegs, but prior to the restoration, the instrument had been unplayable for over a decade, and I just never even took it out of the case to look at it. 2) The 4/1 mechanical advantage and absence of ââ¬Ësticking' make it much easier to adjust the tension on the string between the peg and the nut. 3) The improvement in adjusting the tension does not necessarily translate into improvement in tuning, since on my lute, the strings stick at the nut. Perhaps I need a new nut, or need to repair and re-install the ââ¬Ëroller-nut' I built 40 years ago that I removed for the restoration. I have just been too busy playing, and perhaps a bit lazy and procrastinating so far. 4) Changing strings requires a lot more (4X) knob twisting, and they do not fit any guitar string winders I have seen. 5) As a former industrial and university failure analysis engineer, I am always worried that one day, something inside the peg head will go ââ¬ËPop', the peg won't work, and my lute will be essentially disabled, and I will not be able to fix it myself because I have no idea what the ââ¬Ëguts' of the mechanism is or if there is even a way to take it apart for repair without destroying it. A. John Mardinly, Ph.D., P.E. Retired Principal Materials Nanoanalysis Engineer On Feb 11, 2017, at 8:59 AM, Roman Turovsky [1]<[1][email protected]> wrote: A question for the Collective Wisdom: Looking for opinions on planetary tuners for lutes or vihuelas, cautionary tales, where to get them, which brands, how to install etc. Thank ye all, RT To get on or off this list see list information at [2][2]https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.cs.dartmouth .edu_-7Ewbc_lute-2Dadmin_index.html&d=DQICaQ&c=AGbYxfJbXK67KfXyGqyv2Eji z41FqQuZFk4A-1IxfAU&r=MAuGvnWTcVQkxORgQD0QS50ZicPM3Nw-61ygSK-LNEQ&m=qhk PbCA9hO80PkW18vkevfqksMnDfwT3D4yosPLAH9Y&s=bWPEnXQeUDe15yQrHzezPd2v4Mu_ YRly_RHlQF1hFMs&e References 1. [3]mailto:[email protected] 2. [4]https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.cs.dartmouth.ed u_-7Ewbc_lute-2Dadmin_index.html&d=DQICaQ&c=AGbYxfJbXK67KfXyGqyv2Ejiz41FqQuZFk4A -1IxfAU&r=MAuGvnWTcVQkxORgQD0QS50ZicPM3Nw-61ygSK-LNEQ&m=qhkPbCA9hO80PkW18vkevfqk sMnDfwT3D4yosPLAH9Y&s=bWPEnXQeUDe15yQrHzezPd2v4Mu_YRly_RHlQF1hFMs&e= -- References 1. mailto:[1][email protected] 2. https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.cs.dartmouth 3. mailto:[email protected] 4. https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.cs.dartmouth.edu_-7Ewbc_lute-2Dadmin_index.html&d=DQICaQ&c=AGbYxfJbXK67KfXyGqyv2Ejiz41FqQuZFk4A-1IxfAU&r=MAuGvnWTcVQkxORgQD0QS50ZicPM3Nw-61ygSK-LNEQ&m=qhkPbCA9hO80PkW18vkevfqksMnDfwT3D4yosPLAH9Y&s=bWPEnXQeUDe15yQrHzezPd2v4Mu_YRly_RHlQF1hFMs&e=
