[texhax] stacking letters

[David Aue]

Hi,

I'm creating a notation system for Indian classical percussion (tabla) and I
am trying find a way to position small sized characters above a normal sized
short word, essential making something like a diacritical mark for a short
word.  For instance I would like to position a small '1' over a normal 'te'.
Eventually I would like a macro that centers a small #2 about 1ex+1pt above
the baseline of a normal #1.

I am new to TeX so I started experimenting with boxes but got stuck
understanding the behaviour of:

\hbox{\vbox{\hbox{1}\hbox{te}} \vbox{\hbox{1}\hrule\hbox{te}}}

The first vbox has substantial space between the '1' and the 'te' (the
amount of space actually seems to depend on context), whereas in the second
vbox with the hrule there is no space between the two.  Can someone explain
this behavior to me and help me with how to control the spacing when there
is no hrule?

Thanks,
David Aue