Alternatives to bone/ivory

[Quickstep192]

I find myself needing to make an oversize nut. I’m looking for material I can buy in a slab of say, 1/2 x 1/2 x 2”

I see ivory substitutes called Elforyn and another called Alternative Ivory col.849/TM. Given that ivory was originally used for nuts and saddles and these products are similar to ivory, I’m wondering how these compare to bone, or even ivory for a guitar nut.

Anybody ever tried them?

[Big Band Guitar]

How about this.

www.astromet.com/macor.htm

[JonWint]

I used Corian in "vanilla" color:

https://i.imgur.com/JyzmYZJ.jpg

[LouieAtienza]

Originally Posted by JonWint

I used Corian in "vanilla" color:

https://i.imgur.com/JyzmYZJ.jpg

+1... There are some really cool patterns for solid surface material that I think would make great nut/saddle material.

[Mr Fingers]

Thank you for initiating this thread. I have found no equal or superior substitutes for bone, but am increasingly interested in getting away from using animal-based materials. I hope some good ideas pop up. I am not a fan or Corian or Tusq, both of which work OK but are, IMO, inferior to bone in various ways. Perhaps they are the best we can do for the moment.

[Frank Ford]

Don't forget that you can laminate bone just as you can wood or other materials. Medium viscosity cyanoacrylate is a good choice for adhesive.

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by Mr Fingers

Thank you for initiating this thread. I have found no equal or superior substitutes for bone, but am increasingly interested in getting away from using animal-based materials. I hope some good ideas pop up. I am not a fan or Corian or Tusq, both of which work OK but are, IMO, inferior to bone in various ways. Perhaps they are the best we can do for the moment.

A while back, someone was pushing the use of glass saddles. I haven’t tried it, but thought I’d throw that out there.

[Rodger Knox]

I've used carbon fiber as saddle material, never tried it for a nut.

[Long Jon]

I’ve got one guitar with an ebony nut, works fine.

There’s a guy here in UK who sells custom nuts/saddles/bridge pins made out of various materials.
I have had some ebony pins, a couple of bone saddles and a nut made by him, he does excellent work, kind of a Brit Bob Colossi. http://www.chrisalsopguitar.co.uk/sh...te=common/home

Anyhoo ... He also offers saddles made of ebony, look cool, don’t know how they perform.

I don’t know anything about building guitars ! I strayed in here by accident , , ,
I’m just gonna back out quietly now and not bother you guys again ...

[tadol]

My Klepper uses a lignum vitae nut - many guitars use ebony nuts - you could also probably make a good nut from tagua, or vegetable ivory, which is a dried seed and looks very much like ivory. If you use a zero fret, the nut acts primarily to establish string spacing, and not height, so you could probably use any number of materials, especially if you keep your string path relatively straight -

[ruby50]

Several suppliers offer Mother Of Pearl nut blanks - very classy

[M Hayden]

Corian, silestone, carbon fiber, ebony, brass, pearl....there are lots of options. Not sure how much I’d notice the difference for most of them.

Ps thanks to Frank Ford for the best nut-making tutorial on the internet:
http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luth...t/newnut1.html

[Cantelibre]

I replaced the Tusq saddle and nut on my Gibson J-35 (reissue) with bone. It looks better and I think it sounds better. Since the guitar had good intonation, I compensated the bone saddle to match the Tusq. It is hard to judge the amount of improvement, but no way am I putting the Tusq back in.