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I started a quick little guitar, and ran into a problem right away. It's a little Stradivarius style baroque. I have the head cut out and chalk fit to the neck blank. I glued on the veneer for the bottom, it has to be on before I glue it to the neck. Photos always show the strings as a total nightmare on the heads of baroque guitars. I checked, and can only find one solution; and it is rather inelegant. The top three posts are fine, but the posts for the outer pairs of strings are backwards, and one has to tune the opposite way.

It that right? Well, I know it's not right, but is that what they do?

Are there other guitars, even modern ones, where the posts are not arranged in a sane manner? Where the strings hit other posts before they reach their post?

I drew it up 2X scale on my plan to make sure that it would work. There seems to be no other way that keeps the pegs in a straight line.
Having the pegs any other way just looks stupid.

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Why be normal?

I've seen three solutions used for this. One is to run all the strings to the insides of the posts which may mean some strings rubbing against posts on the way to their tuner posts depending on the headstock design. Another is to run the outermost string of the outer two courses to the outsides of the two tuners closest to the nut and run all the rest of the strings to the insides of the other tuners. The third is to run both strings of each of the outer courses to the outsides of the four tuners closest to the nut and run the strings of the inner courses to the insides of their tuner posts.

The book The Illustrated History of the Guitar has photos of guitars from the 1500s and 1600s with such arrangements. Which arrangement gets use may depend on whether or not the tuner posts are aligned parallel to the guitar centerline or if they are splayed out as they go from the nut to the end of the headstock, and how close or far the tuners are from the centerline.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Over on MIMF there is an expert on early string instruments: Joe Dusepo. She might have some ideas...

Dave M

https://www.mateus-lutes.com/image/baro ... 08_peg.jpg

The second suggestion J mentioned.

If I were doing it I would be inclined to keep the outline of the baroque peghead, but arrange the peg holes in typical snakehead fashion (reverse splay). They could still be in straight lines, just not parallel lines.