Bone Nuts - WHAT ANIMAL??!

Cow.

 

The most delicious of all luthiery materials.

 

And what about corn nuts? I didn't know corn had ... ahhhhh never mind.

 

Ok, ok..... I'll resist the urge to say something cute here...... I may be all wrong here. But something in a distant brain cell tells me that whale's were the critters of choice for bone nuts.

 

Baleen, AKA whalebone was commonly used in corsets back in the day, but it's not actual bone. It's made up of keratin, the same thing our fingernails are made of.

A wizened old hillbilly once told me for a banjo to be proper required a nut made from the thigh bone of a bear. I asked if it made that much difference in the sound and he said no, but it insured fewer banjos got made.

As far as bone used for instrument nuts these days, using the SWAG method i'm thinking cow bone for no other reason than price/availability.

 

The common stuff is cow bone. It has to be properly cut and dried though, so there's not much point hanging on to those t-bone leftovers.

 

Human is not advised.

 

Perhaps we should ask the question concerning what difference would come from the use of different animals' bones. Would hippo bone sound more meaty? Is Giraffe bone better for longer necked instruments? Would hamster bones sound cuter? What's the best bone for metal?

 

Electric eel bone composite nuts are great for electric guitars. But is Tusq brand nuts made from tusk?

 

I hear human horn is desirable on some planets.

 

Hi Matt,

As mentioned, cow bones are what is used; given how common cows are used as food this makes good use of other "byproducts" of them. There are other manmade materials available that are excellent as a replacement for cow bone nuts that are not of animal origin you might consider.

Jeff

Edit: spelling

 

awesome.

and yeah, i'm pretty sure it's plain ol' cow bone.

(unless the blanks are from china, they might be made from "executed political prisoner", who knows )

 

Cow there is plenty of it and the bones are big enough to make many nuts from one bone.

 

It would probably be a PETA....er.....PITA to find out.

 

I have it on good authority that Banth bone makes excellent nuts. Sadly, there are very high shipping costs, and import restrictions...

 

I am not a vegan, but I actually prefer Graphtech to actual bone. They are self lubricated and you don't have a piece of an animal carcass on your bass.

 

I once bought a bone blank to make a new nut for one of my basses. To make quick work of the initial shaping of it, I used a bench grinder. Pee...eww! Smelled like burnt hair!

 

You don't mind tree carcasses?