Does anyone know a good source for leque tuners, as used on Portuguese guitar, waldzither, English guitar, and Portuguese mandolins and cavaquinhos? I'm looking for the 4 string ones, like on cavaquinho. The cheapest I've found is about €30, which isn't too much more than a good set of guitar or mandolin machine heads but much more than the average uke ones. But then there's the extra cost of getting them from Portugal.
Or alternatively, is it possible to make them?
I'm currently building an Iranian setar (not to be confused with the Indian sitar!), which looks like this:
The traditional peghead design is quite simple with wooden pegs, and is much like a Turkish saz/baglama:
Some makers now make more of a pegbox design:
However, I also came across this design which I think would work great, because whilst the setar has low-tension strings, they are steel and so wooden pegs are not ideal. So this seems like a perfect (and very elegant) solution to not have too much weight on the head and still easy tuning:
And for completeness, here's the body for the setar I'm building which I've already completed (currently working on the neck):
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