nassic_zhd
Oud Admirer
Posts: 8
Registered: 11-8-2018
Member Is Offline
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Caring for a borrowed low-quality Egyptian oud
I met someone here in Beijing, China who bought a cheap oud in Egypt as a decoration. I have been separated from my oud for three years due to COVID
so I was very happy to have the chance to see and try this oud - he has lent it to me for a few months as I save up to buy a Sylent-oud.
The oud is quite low quality and I would like to ask for a bit of advice in caring for it - especially what NOT to do - and if someone could identify
its maker or give some insight on the instrument itself that would be wonderful.
My original oud is a cheap (but not this cheap) Egyptian oud from arabinstruments.com, I have about two years of playing experience.
Here are some photos of the borrowed oud:
https://imgur.com/a/z97nT19
There are two main problems with the oud that "reduce its playability", the first is that the strings are not parallel with the face and fingerboard.
The action is much lower by the nut (low enough to cause buzz) than it is at the high end of the fingerboard. I had a similar problem with my own oud,
the action was too low near the nut due to shipping damage that lowered the nut profile on one side. I fixed this by sticking a bit of card underneath
the nut and I believe the same will work for this oud, although the action will still be inconsistent. I suppose the only way to fix it for real would
be to replace the bridge.
The other issue is with the pegs. One course is currently missing so I have not had a chance to try all of the pegs but there is one in particular
(G/2nd course) that, when I picked up and tuned the oud, refused to stay in place and would immediately loosen itself upon being tuned up to G. With
no string attached, I can't get it to hold in place, it always rotates easily. Another player who tried this oud told the owner that they believed the
wood was too soft - though the other pegs seem to work fine. I think that since there are three pegs yet to be used, it's possible that those three
all work fine and I can just use an unorthodox stringing setup to make it work, but of course ideally I would like to find a solution to this.
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Victoria
Oud Addict
Posts: 48
Registered: 1-24-2023
Location: Odense, Denmark
Member Is Offline
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I am not an expert at this but I do have one suggestion you could use regarding the slippery tuning peg. What you can do is using a string which has
not been shortened too much before mounting it on the corresponding peg. Then, let it wind in the direction of the peg handle (against the outer frame
of the pegbox) in such a way that the peg is drawn into the pegbox by the string itself. It will be held in place as you tune up your oud. I know this
because I had the opposite problem where a tuning peg was becoming too tight because the string was too long and started to pull in the peg 
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