Fomrhi Comm: 1907Eric Franklin

Lute pegs from Holbein’s Ambassadors’ portrait:

Introduction

Two years ago I decided to construct a lute with six courses for early to mid sixteenth century repertoire in mind. I wanted a pegbox that was square, chunky and had pegs like those in the Holbein Ambassadors’ portrait, just to see how well they worked out. I discussed this with an archaeologist friend describing the peg as looking like Henry VIII’s w*lly. True to her historical scepticism, she asked me how I knew what Henry VIII’s w*lly looked like and I had to fall back on comparative anatomy to explain.

I have seen various solutions to this design so please consider mine as my interpretation only.

My chosen wood was holly; easy to carve and fine grained and, as luck would have it, several staves in store from when my son had helped dismantle RodeBirdGardens three year’s previously.

I passed some of these pegs around Lute Society colleagues, eliciting various ribaldries, but was able to demonstrate that they made for very effective finger grips when tuning. They look as if they have been derived from ‘T’ piece pegs that I have seen on illustrations of gitterns.

Turnery and carvery

I turned the shaft of the peg, followed by a disc about 2cm wide and 1cm deep for the head (Stage 1).

I looked for the grain direction and, taking a sharp chisel, progressively and carefully removed two facets on opposite sides of the peg, following the grain. Hand pressure was quite sufficient. The width across facets was a fraction wider than the shaft (Stage 2).

Next, using the inside of a suitable washer as a guide, I marked out two circles that took the full width of the peg head and kissed in the middle – the sketch might remind you of Anne Boleyn. Next I removed the area shaded in Stage 3 to yield a ‘T’ piece with rounded ends.

Now, I marked the centre of the facets for a band that tapered very slightly from the top of the shaft to the head of the peg, (Stage 4) and rounded off the sides to truncated spheres.

Finally, I cut a shallow grove round the inner ends of the spheres and top of the band to accentuate the edges of the band.

And there you have it: a peg that Henry VIII would be proud of.

Eric Franklin, 5/4/’10 briefly modified