![]() The "sacrificial" peg-box was worth its weight in gold ! And once I had the "measure of the beast" by making a dummy peg-hole and just observing how LITTLE can be taken off, I went ahead, reamed the peg-holes and (in my case) shaved the oversize pegs. In fact, before I started on the violin peg-box I built myself a "sacrificial" peg box from some scrap wood, and experimented with the reamer just to see how deep, how rapidly, how easy, how much pressure etc etc was required to ream out the hole.Īlthough fairly happy to get involved in any sort of DIY/construction project, I am always cautious. What I'm getting at is this - it is NOT difficult. You won t need the shaver of course - but you may well need a 30:1 reamer - they are not at all expensive (well, the super-duper pro ones are, but a basic tool will be just fine). Soooo - I looked into getting new pegs (supplied oversize) and fitting them.įor this I required two items - a peg shaver, and a 30:1 reamer (just to re-do the pegholes, although they now seemed more or less OK after having "worked the pegs" for a while as mentioned above. However - and to get to the point of fitting planetary geared pegs - the pegs themselves had other "issues" - they had wear-grooves from the actual strings, and were uneven - leading to an uncertain and uncontrolled winding of the string as they were tightened. Eventually, I guess the wood "compressed" to some extent and they actually became usable. A "reasonable" amount of pressure into the peg box was applied. I avoided doing things like just twisting a half-turn or so back and forward, and continually worked them in the same direction, clockwise for MANY turns, and anti-clockwise for MANY turns. Initially, I removed the strings ( one at a time ) and worked the pegs quite vigorously in the peg hole with a LOT of Hill compound. seriously, it was probably just log-term wear ( it is about 90 years old and clearly ha been played a LOT ! ) They look as if they may have been shaped using a chain-saw, and the peg-holes could have been reamed-out using a rat-tail file. ![]() I got a 3/4 fiddle from ebay (intended for experimental purposes, but it turns out is it quite playable). If I was installing on another violin I'd get another set of knillings but the wittners are a close - I don t know if this will give you confidence or not - but here's a little story. Solid construction and tuning is superior to wood pegs. ![]() The wittners have a slight mechanical feel and you can feel gears clicking.ĥ. You can even push and pull the mechanism to control their action. I don't use a fine tuner on either violin.Ĥ. The wittners are so accurate (higher turn ratio). Both are leaps and bounds better than friction pegs. ![]() Hands down the Knilling look like traditional pegs. I found the Knilling were easier to install.Ģ. The perfections have a small thread in the shaft that does not need glue if you do it right. Since it's held in by friction if it's off the peg slips. But there is little room for error in how much or little you ream. The wittner come in smaller shaft sizes so you might need to ream less. I have a set of each on a violin right now.ġ. I wanted to share my experience with anyone thinking about trying out these geared pegs.
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