Hardware suppliers? (pegs specifically)

[Luke Pighetti]

Hey all, I'm looking to make a few sounding bowls. My only real sticking point right now is deciding what to use for pegs. They just need to be simple and not take up a lot of space on the face of the bowl. Any thoughts? I'm also not trying to spend $10 a peg, because a bridging bowl could end up racking up $180 in pegs. I considered making my own, violin style. I have found tapered drill bits but am unsure about getting the right taper on the pegs without a LOT of trial and error. Any thoughts on that?

[John Shuk]

Grizzly.com ?

[John Coloccia]

Hey all, I'm looking to make a few sounding bowls. My only real sticking point right now is deciding what to use for pegs. They just need to be simple and not take up a lot of space on the face of the bowl. Any thoughts? I'm also not trying to spend $10 a peg, because a bridging bowl could end up racking up $180 in pegs. I considered making my own, violin style. I have found tapered drill bits but am unsure about getting the right taper on the pegs without a LOT of trial and error. Any thoughts on that?

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Special_tools_for_Tuner_installation/Peg_Shaper.html

Thing is that you really need the peg and the hole taper to be pretty precise. This is normally done with a tapered reamer. Oh, it will cost you a bit more than $100 to get the shaver and the reamer, but then you can make all the pegs you want and they will always fit perfectly, won't bind, etc.

[Harold Matthews]

Years ago, when I was into Fiddle and Banjo making, I made a peg shaver just like a pencil sharpener. I took a block of hardwood, and drilled it with the grain, then used a tapered reamer to match the shapes of the pegs. Tapered reamers might be found on ebay, and, any decent piece of steel can be used for the "Blade" of the peg shaver.

Just study a hand held pencil sharpener and duplicate it for what you want.

Just be sure to "scrape" the new peg, not cut it like a pencil. Pegs are hard and pencils are not.