Re: New Eastman won't stay in tune - bad pegs?
Are your strings going sharp or flat? Or are the changes sometimes one, sometimes the other?
Consistently going flat can be an indication of new strings continuing to stretch out. You would find this with a guitar as well, though -- and probably a violin a well, though I lack personal experience with violin strings.
What sometimes happens when strings are held too tightly in the slots of the nut, is that the additional tension or slackness you apply to the portion of the string between tuning peg and nut, "works its way" to the portion of the string between nut and bridge, often when you're playing the mandolin, but sometimes when it's just sitting there unplayed. You tighten the string too much to raise it to concert pitch, because only a portion of the extra tension you're applying actually gets "through" the nut to the sounding part of the string. Then, later, the extra tension works its way through the nut slots and the sounding portion of the string goes sharp.
Instruments left to themselves may or may not "hold their pitch." Changes in temperature and humidity produce small but noticeable effects on the geometry of a wooden instrument, stretching or slackening strings as a result. Better instruments can be more sensitive; your electric bass, which may just be a solid slab of wood, shows less effect than a violin or a mandolin.
I expect that an unplayed instrument I pick up to play won't be in the same tuning as when I put it away. That's why I have so many of those li'l tuners stuck to headstocks of the instruments I play frequently. If instruments stayed in tune, they wouldn't need sensitive tuning devices like your Eastman's pegs; they could have tuning pins like pianos (or Autoharps), only needing to be adjusted with a wrench every now and then.
Of course, my Autoharps go out of tune all the time, but that's another (sad) story...
Allen Hopkins
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