Ivory inlays for lines in fretless conversion

Hey, I really like your build threads, just wondering on this one....why?

 

I really love this idea, and thanks for putting Mammoth Ivory on my radar. Sub'd!

 

Hey sorry for maybe the dumb post...
I guess using the ivory just to fill lines seemed like a bit of a waste to me. I totally get its use as nut material, or for inlays, something where you get a bit more bang for your buck so to speak. Seems like as fret lines the ivory would just disappear into forgottenland.

 

I'd be concerned that the ivory is not the same hardness as the fingerboard and will wear slower, leaving raised 'frets'. Dunno...

 

I've never owned a fretless, does the fretboard really wear down like that, leaving the inlays raised? If so, I would think the everything should hold up fine if you finish the fretboard in epoxy or what have you. I vote mammoth for ethical/mojo reasons.

 

agreed, other than the bragging rights (which nobody will notice or be impressed by unless you tell them about it), it seems like a waste of essentially irreplaceable ivory.

 

I've used old piano ivory veneer before. I laminated a nut blank for this 6 string bass.



My 8yo son was looking over my shoulder and just asked me...
Al; "what's ivony"
me; "Ivory, is the bone that comes from elephant tusks or horns"
Al; "how do they get it"
me; "they have to kill the elephant to get the tusks"
Al; "that's really sad..."

He's right. I say re-use/recycle the ivory for something beautiful and noble like your bass. And when people ask what you used for the line markers, its a chance to say, "Some poor elephant died so they could take this for a piano. Let's make sure that doesn't happen again."

 

Ivory is a material that I simply wont touch, even mammoth or recycled ivory. Not that you are doing anything at all wrong by using it, but I feel that its use, even if its reused ivory still proves that there is a market for it. The mammoth ivory trade has to be an incentive to poachers with no ethics, that could care less about the elephant populations

 

This is not meant to be snarky, but rather a question born of genuine curiosity. Do you feel that by using mammoth ivory gathered by harvesting the material from extinct creatures frozen under glacial ice it increases the demand for ivory in general (whether real or perceived) and contributes to the ivory harvesting problem in general?

 

Elk also have ivory. and many other animals. to the googles!

 

Well, its kind of a grey area to me. The fact that people are going to the trouble of finding mammoth ivory as an alternative to killing elephants means that there is still a market for ivory. Collecting and selling mammoth ivory in itself is totally a totally responsible, and ethical method of meeting a demand for a useful material, be it for guitar nuts, piano restoration, jewelry ect. The grey area in my mind comes from that fact that humans can be very cruel and heartless, and have a tendency to take advantage of a situation. Poachers will see the harvesting of mammoth ivory as a sign that there is still a strong demand for ivory, and they know that not everyone has the morals to only obtain it in an ethical and legal way.

 

If you are referring to their antlers, that is not true. Their teeth can be considered ivory, but they are not big enough to do much with. Ivory is basically a tooth (dentine) with no enamel on its surface, from what I have read, and remember, don't quote me on that. The only animals on earth today that have ivory in the traditional sense are elephants and walruses, at least ivory in quantities large enough to be useable.

 

Here's another thought:

There may well be "150 million" mammoth tusks in the tundra of Russia, but how is that mammoth-sized tusk cache retrieved? How much gas and other resources are being, or will be, used to retrieve the tusks? It could be a costly endeavour of elephantine proportions.

Reminds me of the neodymium conundrum. The neodymium material is being used to make electric motors for cars and turbines for windmills for clean energy purposes, but the neodymium harvesting is leaving tailings ponds of hazardous material behind. Then, of course, the electric car has no emissions, but the energy to charge the electric car's battery has to come from somewhere... many power grids are fueled by burning coal, or hydro-electric with wildlife habitat destroyed by the acre so a dam(n) reservoir can be built, nuclear reactors...

There's no easy answers. How many people bother to turn off their modems and computers when they're done surfing? Human-kind's increasingly voracious appetite for energy makes re-using ivory piano keys pale by comparison.

I'm all for recycling. I'd rather the piano detritus be reborn than simply sent to the dump to be buried, incinerated or whatever. Whether re-using ivory piano keys promotes continued poaching or not, I can't say.

What I would say, were I to re-use the piano-key ivory as fretlines and somebody asked about them, I'd simply state it was a recycled organic material.

Pachyderm protruberances, de-finitely something to fret over...

 

Makes me light headed just thinking about it....

 

I wonder if it would really look any different if you used a cream colored plastic or rock maple? The fret slots are so thin it will just look like some unidentifiable beige material, so why Ivory?

 

And I thought you were Joking...

It's no laughing matter, such as N2O.