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As seen here? I imagine they did this to strengthen the hole since mahogany might be a bit too soft or to easily burnished.

Do you think that would be necessary in a beech wood headstock (as in the old Vienna guitar in my other thread)?

For a guitar I used friction pegs on I was advised to use boxwood and hide the bushings under the face veneer ( I didn't drill all the way through the back of the peghead. I heard ebony (pegs) are abrasive and wear violin peg holes more quickly than box wood pegs so box bushings is what I used. Someone might have bushed the Martin with Rosewood?

https://www.swstrings.com/product/lutherie/viola/R333V

Yeah it does look like rosewood doesn't it.

If any of your new pegs intercept old plugs, I think that you cannot rely on the integrity of the old plugs. I think if your new pegs hit those old spots, then you will need a "bushing". Plenty of flamenco guitars have pegs directly into mahogany, which I am guessing is not particularly resilient.

I'm a big fan of spiral paper bushings. In fact I'd put them in a brand new build. Their advantage is that there's no end grain/side grain, the hole that the peg sits in is homogeneous all the way around. When it finally wears out? well it's easily replaced, in fact you shouldn't need to ream any wood at all.

I have an old Martin with pegs. The holes have rosewood around them.

I was told to put the bushings in so the end grain was front and back of the peghead. That meant the peg was bearing on long grain all the way around.

I do plan on making new holes away from the old dowels. The beech wood probably is strong enough. My client is a vintage collector and he like the idea of a 'bushing' but I think I would rather not drill yet another hole in this headstock though done right it's probably just fine.



That's very interesting, I had to look that up. Very clever idea indeed.


Cool. Yeah the one's pictured above do indeed look like rosewood.

spiral paper bushings

OK, I know this was a recent topic, but I cannot find it. Please provide me the link.

There are a number of discussions on the Maestronet forum, here is one of them (read past the gibberish):
https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php? ... l-bushing/

And another and better:
https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php? ... -question/

Here's a pretty good pictorial on these bushings too:

https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php? ... -bushings/

I don't think you need any bushings in beech. It's pretty hard wood. Those Martin necks are Spanish cedar, which is relatively soft.

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John

Thanks John. Quick question, was it common for those old Martins to install a wood bushing(if so what kind of wood is it?) or do you think the above photo's are repair work?

Martin installed wood bushings that are probably rosewood.

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John

Thanks John.