What bone is that bone saddle or nut?

[Johny Tenthumbs]

Originally Posted by perttime

Out of curiosity: what species have you used?

I've made saddle and nut blanks out of moose, cow, ostrich, black bear, and elk. I can't distinguish any tonal difference between species on the same guitars, nor do I distinguish a difference when sawing or filing.

I was a butcher for some time years ago before I went back to school to get my agriculture degree. I've cut up more cows, hogs, and lamb than I care to remember lol, thousands of each. Some rhea and ostrich too.

I was an avid hunter and often exchanged my trade skills with outfitters to help finance my hunting trips. Lots of experience with deer, moose, caribou, antelope, and few other species.

Like a cabinet maker or a carpenter, you get to the point where you can differentiate the woods and their hardnesses by how they run trough a saw.

[j.blay]

I make my own nuts and saddles out of cattle or camel bone. Cant say I hear any difference in tone. I don't like bleached bone. Too bright for my taste. Guess I prefer Camel bones color. Looks more aged. I have legal ivory I sometimes use on my favorite guitars. I like the look and what I can best describe as a creamy enhancement noticed in the overtones of my finest hand built guitar.

[AcousticDreams]

I have made Saddles out of Black Horn, Bleached Cow bone, Unbleached Cow bone, and unbleached Camel Bone.

My favorites are Unbleached Cow bone and unbleached Camel Bone. However, Unbleached Camel bone is my favorite of the two. I hear a difference between the,. On some instruments I would prefer the Unbleached Cow bone.

The bigger question is= Is it really Camel bone they are selling me...or are they just saying it is? ha ha. I will never know as it comes from overseas.

[Wade Hampton]

Sounds like you need to take a trip to Saudi Arabia in order to get the camel bone from the source! Either that or Australia; my understanding is that there are feral camels living in the Outback, and since they're an invasive species they're also a bit of a pest.

In the 1850's the United States Army of the West attempted to use camels as transport animals and beasts of burden in the arid parts of the Southwest, but that experiment was a failure. A lot of the camels got away, and so for a few decades there were feral camels roaming around in the hinterlands in the US, as well.

†††††

Here's an article about it in Atlas Obscura:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...ffith-park-zoo

While feral camels seemed to have died out in this country, they didn't in Australia:

†††††

According to what I've read, there are hundreds of thousands of feral camels in Australia right now.

So picking up some camel bone to saw into guitar saddles and nuts might be fairly easy to do in Australia, but I suppose we'd better check with the Australians about that.

Bruce, Colin - any of you guys go camel-wrangling on the weekends?

Just curious....


Wade Hampton Miller

[frankmcr]

Originally Posted by perttime

People often replace saddles and nuts with ones made from "bone". But WHAT BONE is it?

.

"Alas, poor Yorick . . . "

[perttime]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

...

I'll ask my buddy Bob Clark who's built a couple of guitars for me. If he was using moose bone I'm sure he would have mentioned it, so I'm pretty certain he hasn't, but it might not have occurred to him to do so.


Wade Hampton Miller

I suppose the story here might go something like this:
"Bone is good for saddles and nuts. Bone from the legs of a big animal that gets a lot of exercise should be very good indeed. Cows don't walk all that much. Not sure I can get horse bones. Moose walk a lot. My friend Jukka hunts moose every year. I wonder what he does with the bones."

[AcousticDreams]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Sounds like you need to take a trip to Saudi Arabia in order to get the camel bone from the source! Either that or Australia; my understanding is that there are feral camels living in the Outback, and since they're an invasive species they're also a bit of a pest.

In the 1850's the United States Army of the West attempted to use camels as transport animals and beasts of burden in the arid parts of the Southwest, but that experiment was a failure. A lot of the camels got away, and so for a few decades there were feral camels roaming around in the hinterlands in the US, as well.

†††††

Here's an article about it in Atlas Obscura:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...ffith-park-zoo

While feral camels seemed to have died out in this country, they didn't in Australia:

†††††

According to what I've read, there are hundreds of thousands of feral camels in Australia right now.

So picking up some camel bone to saw into guitar saddles and nuts might be fairly easy to do in Australia, but I suppose we'd better check with the Australians about that.

Bruce, Colin - any of you guys go camel-wrangling on the weekends?

Just curious....


Wade Hampton Miller

Always fun information you offer Wade! It amazes me what I don't know. Wondered why some sellers from Australia where offering Camel bone. I just thought they were getting it from some where else.

Some of the ones I got actually came from an Chinese seller. And I wondered how he got it. As I do not think Camels are in China.

[Silurian]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

Always fun information you offer Wade! It amazes me what I don't know. Wondered why some sellers from Australia where offering Camel bone. I just thought they were getting it from some where else.

Some of the ones I got actually came from an Chinese seller. And I wondered how he got it. As I do not think Camels are in China.

Batrian camels are found throughout Central Asia, including China. These may be the source.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by Silurian

Batrian camels are found throughout Central Asia, including China. These may be the source.

You beat me to it: two-humped Bactrian camels 🐫 are native to Central Asia, much of it within China’s borders.


whm

[AcousticDreams]

Originally Posted by Silurian

Batrian camels are found throughout Central Asia, including China. These may be the source.

You guys are better than National Geographic, the History channel, discovery, or Animal Planet!

I just never know what I am going to learn on AGF! So very cool!

[perttime]

Apparently, bactrian camels don't thrive in dry desert conditions.

[Pura Vida]

So, they're not made from the bones of banjo players? Hmm.

[Wade Hampton]

Perttime in Finland wrote:

Originally Posted by perttime

Apparently, bactrian camels don't thrive in dry desert conditions.

Well, they've got those shaggy coats, which they need in Central Asia. But it gets pretty dry there, too - I suspect they have troubles in the Middle Eastern and North African deserts more because of the unrelenting heat than the dryness.


Then Pure Vida wrote:

Originally Posted by Pura Vida

So, they're not made from the bones of banjo players? Hmm.

These days that's only legal in Alabama, Arkansas and certain jurisdictions in eastern Tennessee and Kentucky. Plus the CITES treaty has banned international trade in banjoplayer body parts. So it's no longer profitable to go harvesting those any longer, or worth putting up with their kinfolk shooting at you when you try....

"Y'all come and take 'em, if'n you reckon you CAN!!!"

Hope this helps!


Wade Hampton "Mountain William" Miller

PS: A "Mountain William" is a hillbilly who's been to college and knows how to operate indoor plumbing.

[Allen Shadd]

Originally Posted by murrmac123

Anecdotal, I know, but I was told years ago that the hardest, densest bone in the animal kingdom is to be found in the jaw of an alligator.

One of my luthier friends has a customer whose occupation is taxidermy. Not so much for hunters, but for museums and such, so the animals he mounts are not the usual whitetail deer. According to him, the hardest (densest) bone on the planet belongs to a manatee (surprises me) and as far as land animals go it would be the giraffe femur. He gave a small section of giraffe femur to my friend to use for saddles and nuts. The guitar I just had built has bison bone for the nut and saddle.

[Pura Vida]

Funny stuff, Wade!

Have a great weekend, all.