I've always just bought blanks myself. Used to have a regular classical customer who used to scour the pawnshops and antique shops for old bone and ivory items (usually letter openers) that she used to have me cut into nuts and saddles for her. Very inconsistent results, but she eventually ended up with three or four she liked that she used to swap out depending on the room she was playing.

Freeze dried Ostrich bone ?

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: I've always just bought blanks myself. Used to have a regular classical customer who used to scour the pawnshops and antique shops for old bone and ivory items (usually letter openers) that she used to have me cut into nuts and saddles for her. Very inconsistent results, but she eventually ended up with three or four she liked that she used to swap out depending on the room she was playing.

Would bone be considered a inconsistent material? Or was it mearly because the bone she soured from those antic shops could have been thru sum weird stuff, age difference, and the actual animal it came from?

Changing according to the room? Wow, I thought I was picky

I'd also like to ask, how consistent is tusk? 'Coz where I come from bushpigs are regarded as a pest and hundreds get, uhm, discarded of in a year 'coz they just bugger up any crop.
Now the meat gets used most of the time (zi germans makes brilliant cabanosh and salami from them) and allot of guys keeps the very large tusks to make knife handles from, now I wonder if you could use it for nuts and saddles?

Vick wrote: Would bone be considered a inconsistent material? Or was it mearly because the bone she soured from those antic shops could have been thru sum weird stuff, age difference, and the actual animal it came from?

Bone can be inconsistent in my experience - it's porous and varies from piece to piece (and sometimes within a single piece - not usually a problem unless you have a piezo crystal pickup under a bone saddle when it can cause balance problems).

...mario... wrote: I'd also like to ask, how consistent is tusk?

No idea...

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Bone can be inconsistent in my experience - it's porous and varies from piece to piece (and sometimes within a single piece -

Not as much experience and possibly my imagination but I have ordered bone before and then also used micarta. And lo and behold I prefer the result of micarta (dir cheap). Tusq is good but it costs a lot (unless someone can tell me where to get it cheap). I've spoken to some builders/luthiers who make claims of getting a better result with bone from animals with a denser bone structure. I dont know - only got a nut like that and I dont know how much of an effect nut material has really. What I have noticed about micarta though is that it seems to be like sticky (i can come up with a better word) in your sandpaper - but not too serious. As for bone from a bird, it will be a heck of a lot more porous I guess. Animal tusks are also not so reliable. They use the things for digging and fighting a bit and they get damaged. And I guess it's like us with teeth - it depends on your diet and wellness how they turn out. For me it's more a matter of conscience but hey if you want a bit of animal on your guitar or hang crocodile teeth on your hat and there's lots of tusks going to waste then give it a go.

Ray wrote: Not as much experience and possibly my imagination but I have ordered bone before and then also used micarta. And lo and behold I prefer the result of micarta (dir cheap). Tusq is good but it costs a lot (unless someone can tell me where to get it cheap). I've spoken to some builders/luthiers who make claims of getting a better result with bone from animals with a denser bone structure. I dont know - only got a nut like that and I dont know how much of an effect nut material has really.

I think it makes a difference, but not as much difference as the saddle. My Larrivee was built with tusq nut and bone saddle.

What I have noticed about micarta though is that it seems to be like sticky (i can come up with a better word) in your sandpaper - but not too serious. As for bone from a bird, it will be a heck of a lot more porous I guess. Animal tusks are also not so reliable. They use the things for digging and fighting a bit and they get damaged. And I guess it's like us with teeth - it depends on your diet and wellness how they turn out. For me it's more a matter of conscience but hey if you want a bit of animal on your guitar or hang crocodile teeth on your hat and there's lots of tusks going to waste then give it a go.

I have warthog tusk saddle and nut on my Morgan. The factory items were tusq. The tone is improved. The Smoothtalker I used to have had a warthog tusk nut (saddle was some kind of hardwood).

Some observations and things that the crafstpersons involved have told me
1) Appearance is not as consistent as it is with tusq or micarta.

2) I don't have any experience with micarta but tusq seems to wear a lot quicker than bone/tusk/ivory

3) Wastage is high. This goes to the point that Ray was making about tusks and reliability. Mervyn Davis told me that he has no idea how many nuts he can cut from a tusk until he starts sawing into it because there maybe hollow or rotten areas or cracks within.

4) Tusk is - I'm told - hard on your tools and stinks to high heaven when you're cutting it with a powered saw.

You certainly don't want to use anything from birds for saddles and nuts - or anything else that requires density. If birds had dense bones they would weigh more and expend a lot more energy to fly.

That they stink to high heaven is more than certain, you don't even need to cut it to notice, that's why we pay people to take care of the pigs rather ?

Ray wrote: Tusq is good but it costs a lot (unless someone can tell me where to get it cheap.

Animal tusks are also not so reliable. They use the things for digging and fighting a bit and they get damaged. And I guess it's like us with teeth - it depends on your diet and wellness how they turn out.

Good point, the species that is dominant in our area has thick, straight tusks though and only about kwarter to a third of the tusk is exposed most of the time, so I'd imagine there would be quite allot of material that is out of the line of fire, so to speak.

For me it's more a matter of conscience but hey if you want a bit of animal on your guitar or hang crocodile teeth on your hat and there's lots of tusks going to waste then give it a go.

They're worse than rats in my neck of the woods, so I don't feel guilty about using them, and allot goes to waste, if it can be used, even better, but to each his own.

X-rated Bob wrote: Some observations and things that the crafstpersons involved have told me
1) Appearance is not as consistent as it is with tusq or micarta.

2) I don't have any experience with micarta but tusq seems to wear a lot quicker than bone/tusk/ivory

3) Wastage is high. This goes to the point that Ray was making about tusks and reliability. Mervyn Davis told me that he has no idea how many nuts he can cut from a tusk until he starts sawing into it because there maybe hollow or rotten areas or cracks within.

4) Tusk is - I'm told - hard on your tools and stinks to high heaven when you're cutting it with a powered saw.

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: No idea...

Seems like a bit of uncertainty mostly, IF I was able to salvige a couple of tusks next time (note, IF, going back to the part that they stink should indicate allot of endurance on my part to hack halfway through a pig's head *votch*) would somebody here maybe be willing to try and get some nuts and saddles cut and tell me how it works?






Just a note for clearity incase it's needed, I'm not interessted in supplying, selling, processing, whatever of these things' tusks, I'm merely interested in its worth as a material for guitar building, once I've had my answer, that'll be the end of it, I'm certainly NOT willing to harvest and post these things all over the place on a regular basis.

...mario... wrote: Seems like a bit of uncertainty mostly, IF I was able to salvige a couple of tusks next time (note, IF, going back to the part that they stink should indicate allot of endurance on my part to hack halfway through a pig's head *votch*) would somebody here maybe be willing to try and get some nuts and saddles cut and tell me how it works?

I've already had that job done and posted some observations right here on GFSA. Search for "warthog tusk".

X-rated Bob wrote:

...mario... wrote: Seems like a bit of uncertainty mostly, IF I was able to salvige a couple of tusks next time (note, IF, going back to the part that they stink should indicate allot of endurance on my part to hack halfway through a pig's head *votch*) would somebody here maybe be willing to try and get some nuts and saddles cut and tell me how it works?

I've already had that job done and posted some observations right here on GFSA. Search for "warthog tusk".

Ah, okay, totally missed that, thanks, that clarifies my querry somewhat ?

X-rated Bob wrote:
You certainly don't want to use anything from birds for saddles and nuts - or anything else that requires density. If birds had dense bones they would weigh more and expend a lot more energy to fly.

I think we may have had this discussion before...

For clarity: ostriches don't fly. They run, very quickly sometimes (which might suggest that they are rather dense, as far as birds go?). ?

The haversian canal of the long bones of birds are hollow, and that is the primary difference that makes them good at flying relative to things like cows and warthogs and so on.

The forces associated with flight and aerodynamics are incredible, and thus the bird needs to be strong to be able to cope with those forces during take off, flight and landing. This means strong tendons, ligaments and muscles, which in turn results in the need for strong, but light, bones. The air inside the bones provides for the decreased mass, and normal to increased density provides for the strength. Thus, the density of the actual bone material in a bird skelly is very similar to, and in a lot of cases greater than that of mammals.

I think the key thing here is the method used to determine the density. Sure, if you include the air inside the haversian canal as part of the volume of the bone (which would be silly, as you don't use the air to make your nuts/saddles, because that just wouldn't work very well), then you will come up with a skewed result for the density of the bone. Whereas, if you use a method less conducive to error, say, splitting the bone in half and taking a displacement measurement, you will find that your results might be appealing.

?

In all seriousness, I really think ostrich bone deserves some attention in Luthiery.