TAGUA nut? Luthier types

Ed Fuqua · #1 12-28-2005, 10:55 AM

I was looking at some crafts catalogue and they had a buncha crap carved out of tagua nut ( a sustainable, harvestable resource) and they referred to it as "vegetable ivory', which apparently not only referred to its color (yup) but also its hardness and durability. Any a you luthier types ever checked this out or know anything about it?

I ask cause I was looking through some old DOUBLE BASSISTS and came acroos the article on Tom Kelishek's bass and he used a piec of (antique) ivory for a nut, it looked kinda good...

Mike Crumpton · #2 12-28-2005, 12:35 PM

Tagua? - antique ivory? - what about fossil mastodon then? http://www.ashmeadbows.com/bar_violin.htm Other bowmakers seem to use this too but why not use it for a nut? That would give your bass some cache!

Eric Rene Roy · #3 12-29-2005, 06:53 AM

You can play with Corian too (and it comes in lots of colors, you can get three free samples from the Corian website to start. After that you can get free or buy cheap scraps from a certified Corian installer in your area). Carves well and lasts. I know bowmakers have tried it for frogs, but to be honest I haven't heard much about the long term results.

**Damon Rondeau** · #4 12-29-2005, 07:53 AM

Tagua nuts have fairly large voids in them -- think coconut but on a much smaller scale. This means that tagua isn't going to be used for anything largish...

Jeff Bollbach · #5 12-29-2005, 08:54 AM

Damon's right, I have never seen a tagua nut of sufficient size to yield a bass nut.

Ed Fuqua · #6 12-29-2005, 10:21 AM

You mean like Higdon?

M_A_T_T · #7 12-30-2005, 05:33 PM

I've played around with tagua nuts for ukulele string nuts, which is about as large as you can get out of them. They do have large voids in them, and are also QUITE SOFT, nothing like real ivory.