Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi. I'm new to much of this, but I'm very interested in learning from the ground up, as an experiment, how to build guitar nuts and saddles from raw bone. To do that I need to buy the bone first. I realize this is a fairly involved process with boiling the bone, etc., to remove the fat, but I'm game. I've got a buddy with a great band saw and he's game too.

So where does one procure bone for such an experiment? I've heard some people just go to Petsmart and buy the big cow bones there.

I know Bob Colosi and StewMac and others sell pre-made bone saddles, and I'm sure I'll go that route too at some point, but I have a couple cheapie Yamaha dreadnoughts to play with on this bone experiment.

Appreciate your input and advice.

One other question: Is there any way to buy TUSQ in bulk? Everything I've seen is very expensive in very small quantities.

The pet smart route works fine. Typically the bones there have been mostly degreased.I have got them from the butcher. With raw bone like that you need to boil them them soak in a solvent bath like DNA or sometimes I use lacquer thinner. I soak them for a week or so then shake then a little, pour off the solvent, refill and do it a couple more times.

_________________
Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

I've been wondering what is better, cow or camel bone? You can buy camel bone as knife handle. I think the saddles you buy are cow bone.
I've heard that the hardest bone is the knee joint.

_________________
We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

Try Chrislin Trading: http://www.chrislintrading.com

I've been getting bone from them for some years now and we go through an awful lot of it in your repair biz and so far I've been happy with what we have received.

Things to know is that the bone is imported from China (cow bone) and as such it can take a few weeks to get your order. If ordering saddle blanks it's not uncommon for them to be a bit warped from ANY supplier I will add since I have received warped blanks from all of the suppliers that I know of prior too.

So I order over thicknessed saddle blanks so I have room to true them up on Dan Earlywine's Dad's old belt sander....

We used to process our own but it's too much hassle when decent bone blanks can be had for a song from Christie Song of Chrislin Trading.

Can't speak about Camel even though I have some experience with live camels.... from way back but with cow we like the femurs and when getting and processing our own bone we sought out bone from cattle that were free ranging, using their legs, thinking that density would be better.

I buy rough machined saddles that are around 5/16" and 4" long. I hate making saddles and nuts as the dust is so fine that it is not very filterable. Even my finest filters on my dust mask won't filter it. I have to rough it out with all my dust filtering machinery on and leave the room to let the room clear. Glad I don't have to do it often, and would not want to cut and sand bones to rough out saddles and nuts.

I've done my share of nuts & saddles from cow bones, and it's not difficult at all. It is a lot of work for something that's available so inexpensively.
Camel shin bone is one of the densest of all types of bone, and should be good for nuts and saddles.

_________________
A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

I already drive my wife crazy with all my stuff. I can't imagine the look on her face if I brought a raw camel or cow bone in the house for boiling and soaking in DNA.

By the way, where do you by camel bone nut & saddle material (...uh, preprocessed that is)?

All great advice and input, folks. Appreciate the tips.

Question: I'm working and practicing on a couple lower-end Yamaha FG dread models. Does anyone know of any source out there for pre-cut saddles and nuts for Yamaha steel string guitars. I spoke to Bob Colosi, but he said I'd have to mail one to him (no big deal) to copy exactly.

Thanks

Hesh, thanks much, looked at the website and seems to be a great source.

I hate to create a firestorm, so forgive me, but I wanted to bring up the topic of elephant ivory. I know this is a very polarizing topic.

Does anyone have a reliable source for ivory that they know is OLD ivory and therefore not illegal? Sonically, do you find it has any advantages over cow or camel bone or any other kind of material?

Forgive me if this starts a fiery discussion. I'll pull it down if it becomes too polarizing.

guitarsaddles.com
I haven't tried them but website states their ivory is legally harvested and fully documented.

Scott you don't want to use ivory.... and here's why. Regardless of one's position on preservation of elephants putting ivory on a guitar will make that instrument subject to seizure at any international crossing as per the treaties that are currently regulating ivory trade. For ivory to have "paper work" it has to have been fashioned into it's current state "a nut" and remain that way or the paperwork is useless and the ivory is not legal. If the ivory is not legal any commercial activity, selling the instrument, etc. can get one a long stay with some guy named Bubba....

Decent cow bone is denser than ivory and if low dampening and long wear is important to you, and it should be, bone is a better choice.

Regarding the "sound" of ivory if there is a difference I'm not keen enough to perceive it and I suspect that no one else is either....

Regarding pre-made nuts for Yams they don't exist. Instead there are lots of plastic one-size-never-fits-all out here and they basically suck in all respects. What we do in our shop is every nut is custom made specifically for the instrument that it's going on and we typically only use quality bone. It's more expensive for our clients to not have some plastic piece of crap available but even with the off-the-shelf-never-really-fits choices lots of fitting, if one is into having the nut fit well, is required anyway. Not to mention nut slots that always should be cut to the specific instrument or Mr. and Mrs. player may be struggling more than need be.

Great stuff, Hesh, thanks. Yeah, I think I'll just stay away from ivory. Not worth it, as you say.

So since I'm practicing on Yammie dreads, should I just buy oversized bone blanks and fashion my own from that material? I certainly don't mind giving it a go and seeing what happens.

Thanks Again,
Scott

That's what I would do Scott and I suspect that once you have a few files, some sand paper, etc. and start working with bone that you will find it very relaxing and kind of fun too. Nut making is an art and although lots of folks have made nuts for their guitars there are some things that Luthiers look for when evaluating how well a nut is made. So it does take practice and when I started out I was told that it typically can take about 100 nuts to begin to do it really well.

That scared the hell out of me but in hindsight and in my case it did take me about 100 nuts before I could quicly make a very nice bone nut that has excellent contact, no gaps, ends flush with the neck and fret board, perfectly spaced slots with the nut slot depth being another art in and of itself as well. Bone nuts should be scratch free and many shops have a "nut buffer" as well. No jokes please.....

Nonetheless most folks with some guidance and make a nut good enough to use in one or two tries. It may not be pretty or perfect but the functionality is not difficult to achieve.

Bone banks are cheap and I think even Stew-Mac and LMI have them too.

Inlaidartist on ebay sells bone nut and saddle blanks, they are very cheap if in bulk. I tried pet stores but other than powdered reconstituted "dog bone", they do not offer anything else for dogs to chew on. All I see are reconstituted pet snacks, rubbery fake bones, but no cow bones.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

If you prefer the look of ivory I would suggest warthog, hippo, or mammoth ivory as a substitute for elephant ivory. There are too many hassles associated with elephant ivory. Boone trading co. sells various ivory products that can be turned into nuts and saddles. Bone nuts and saddles may not have the cachet of ivory, but they certainly work as well.

Here's the process that I've followed in the past. Based on buying big knuckle bones from the butcher.
http://www.bearmeadow.com/build/materia ... clean.html

The boiling in detergent must have been very effective for my process since I never saw any evidence that the "degreasing" step with white gas leached any grease out of the bones.

It sounds involved, but it's really not a big deal. I enjoy making stuff from "scratch" but some aren't so motivated.....

Corky, thanks for taking the time to post this. This is exactly the kind of info I was looking for.

If I may ask: Once you have the bone all boiled and prepped and ready to go, what do you cut it with? The reason I ask is I have a buddy who owns a band saw who has volunteered to help me cut the blanks.

Is there a standard thickness for saddles, or does it vary from manufacturer to manufacturer? Likewise for nuts. I'm going to begin working with Yamaha steel-string dreadnoughts for starters.

Great stuff. Thank you so much!

Scott

I just drove myself nuts looking for a beef leg bone. I even went to a slaughterhouse . Seems they're now sawed into soupbones. Locally anyway. So I was needing some bone for position markers. So soup bones boiled in water then soaked in bleech they clean up nicely.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Let's face it... finding fresh cow bone isn't going to be as easy as everyone here makes it out to be. For one thing, you won't find cow bones in all countries, particularly if that country imports its beef (due to mad cow disease, beef for export can't contain bones). Pet stores also do not sell bone for dogs to chew, but instead they have bone shaped biscuits or plastic bone shaped things.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

My local butcher used to save me over sized femurs from grass fed, free ranging local cattle. This stuff was perfect for my needs and super cheap too but the processing was a hassle when one also knows that prepared blanks can also be purchased from any of the Lutherie supply vendors already mentioned in this thread.

In the states pet stores do have genuine cow bones and it's often femurs. They are available at every chain pet store I have ever patronized and also pretty inexpensive as well. The reconstituted products are also available here but I seriously doubt that anyone here would ever attempt to make a nut from a Milk Bone dog biscuit... Maybe Ov*tion might but then they would epoxy the thing on too...

Pet stores sell them usually vacuum packed and they don't immediately look like a bone with all of the brown colored tissue and other stuff on them.

When I was a hobby builder it was OK for me to visit the butcher and get some femurs then throw them in a window well outside my house for a year or more letting the insects and other critters feast away on much of the fats and organic material.

Then a year later came the boiling, soaking in white gas, ruining that $40 band saw blade.... and breathing more bone dust than I might like to.

It is cool to fashion as much as we can from stuff that is not a commercial product but is it practical for everyone? At our hourly rate for our shop it's a no-brainer to purchase decent blanks and use them instead of the time it takes, money too when you consider what it's going to take to mill the material into uniform blanks and of course the opportunity cost of not doing billable hours and instead playing with cow bone.

As always everyone should do exactly what they wish and for their very own reasons as well. For me though I appreciate the Lutherie suppliers who endeavor to have quality bone available for us when ever we need it and I also appreciate that I can procure large quantities at once as I do a couple of times a year.

I'm still wondering when the rush will start of Martin owners who realize that the ivory nut may get them some instant fame when crossing a border...

If you want cheap bone nut blanks, inlaidartist on ebay sells them at less than 1 dollar a blank if you buy in bulk.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I just checked PetSmart on-line and here is an example of what they sell - real deal cow bone with the only additive being smoke flavor. Who knew that Fido has a penchant for smoked meats....

Cool, Thanks, Hesh!

My wife cleaned some cow femurs for a different, non-luthier art project a few years ago. It took a lot of time and a lot of work, it smelled up the house, and it drove our dogs bonkers. Real bones are like crack to our four legged friends. I have no problems paying someone to do this job for me; I just buy processed blanks large enough to cut and sand down to the right size. Worth every penny.