Martin Ivory Straight Through Pegs.....2 Questions

[George Roberts]

Does anyone know what wood was used for the bushings with the ivory pegs?  The bushings have the grain oriented in the same direction as the pegs.  The bushings are very visible from the back, but they match the color of the peghead face so well, that I only recently noticed that they go all the way through.

Second question:  Years ago I bought 6 Martin ivory pegs.  I thought that someday I might find a guitar that was missing a set (I inherited such wishful thinking from my father).  Would it be heresy to put them on a copy that I'm making of a 1915 00-28?  I feel a little guilty using them if there's somebody out there in desperate need of a set.

[Raymond Kallas]

I say go ahead and use them.  It would bump up the cool factor on the guitar IMHO.

BTW, is there a "Lacey act" for ivory?  I just had some ivory keys from a very old piano given to me, and I was thinking of using the ivory on some future builds, but I don't want have the Feds showing up at my door either.

Ray

[Steve Bettesworth]

In the UK you can buy and sell ivory as long as you can prove it is pre 1946. 

Steve

[Ned Knepp]

George, I don't know what the hole liner is but I think it looks like end grain mahogany

I'm of two minds about the pegs. On the one hand, they belong to you so you can use them for whatever you want. The other part of my mind wonders whey anyone would want to use friction pegs as the tuners on a guitar when  a set of planetary gear tuners can give you a lot of the same look with less chance of struggling with slippage.

Anyway, they ARE cool looking. 

[Paul Breen]

This is a link to a Google images search for Pegheds. These are geared tuners with the look of a violin peg, a good alternative to real friction pegs.

https://www.google.com/search?q=pegheds&biw=1920&bih=1046&a...

I know this doesn't help you to find an application for your Ivory pegs, but the Pegheds are much less frustrating to tune an instrument. They install with a standard 2 degree reamer.

The biggest problem with using the Ivory pegs is matching the exact tapper and are they round or have they gone oval. Never tried Ivory in a peg shaver, so I don't know if that would work or not.

[George Roberts]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the input.  Actually, the ivory peg tuners work amazingly well with nylon strings.  They are very smooth, easy to turn, and hold tuning.  They were a more expensive option long after mechanical tuners were available.  Both of my kids learned to play using the pictured guitar.  It was when my son asked if he could take it to a party that I started making guitars.

Here is what the tuners in question look like.  Both sets have a very small tortoise shell dot in the end.  Talk about trouble: ivory AND tortoise shell.  They are threaded on a gut string, and, yes, the price tag says "50 cents apiece".

[Ned Knepp]

I don't now if I should ask about this or not, George but I will anyway. 

Am I seeing mold marks around the edges of the knob end of the tuners? There appear to be vestigial ridges where the sort of flashing that comes from a two part molding process was trimmed away  Are you sure these are ivory? 

[George Roberts]

It must have been the lighting or something, Ned, but there are no mold/flashing marks on the pegs.  As the other side of the price tag says, these are "genuine ivory."  I have some ivoroid pegs, also, and they tend to have both larger buttons and larger posts.  These are 0.210 at the tip of the post, and 0.280 next to the button.  The button is 0.170 at its narrowest.

[Russell Kingery]

I see it too, on the peg on the far left. But after zooming in on the photograph as close as possible I see that it's a swirl in the color, just a dark streak in the ivory.

If they were mine, I would see just what a wealthy collector might be willing to pay for these "50 cent" pegs. If they are worth a hundred bucks, keep them and use them. If they are worth a thousand, cash out and buy another guitar! But, that's just me.