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Minerals as nut material?

jonas_oxide

jonas_oxide

Sep 28, 2004
139
4
44
hamilton on canada
#1
So, I was at a rock and gem show yesterday, and I got what I believe to be a pretty cool idea. If bone is prime material for making nuts because it is hard and waxy, what if I used a piece of appropriately shaped agate(or other stone), sprayed the string slots with hardening graphite lube, and then buffed it clean again?
I think it just might work, unless the vibrations from the strings take out the sides (which I suppose is quite possible due to how brittle the stuff is). I really think it would be cool to have a beautiful green, or purple, or blue, or yellow stone nut, or saddle. I mean to get a sample made by this guy I met from toronto, and he said if it works, he would make me 100 for a really good price because he likes the idea. Anyway, I came to the masters to see what they would think so....
 
#3
Been tried. Most stone will crack under the point load of the string. Bone is stronger that way. I knew a guy once who used jade. It cracked. Abalone shell, cracked. Horn (It's not the same as bone), killed the tone. Plastic, some too soft others work well. Wood, OK if dense but not as bright as bone. Metal, works fine.

Other alternates?

Greg N
 
#6
Along those same lines: anyone have experience or seen discussions of ironwood, snakewood or bois d'arc (bodark) as nut materials? I've been hunting for first-hand accounts, and haven't found any -- plenty about ebony (which I'm trying my hand at now), but these woods should be harder and denser than ebony -- but I'm wondering if they'll end up being more brittle as well. For the record, I'm working on getting bits of those woods to experiment with (ebay has been a great resource), but I'm concerned about what tools to use (it sounds like they would probably ruin normal nut slotting files), and if anyone has already found these to be unusable, I'd love to spare myself the torment...

Cheers all!

ltt
 
#8
Wood nuts are used in most bowed instruments. The tension is lower and the strings smooth so you don't get the wear of a wound string. Yes, snakewood and ebony are dense for wood but not the same tonal characteristics of bone or bone like plastics.

Wood won't dull a file fast, but especially with the oily woods you can get build up between the file teeth. Clean your files often while using with a wire brush so that the next stroke doesn't pack in the dust from the last stroke, you will be much happier with the performance of the tool that way.

Greg N
 
#11
Nelson Guitars said:
Been tried. Most stone will crack under the point load of the string. Bone is stronger that way. I knew a guy once who used jade. It cracked. Abalone shell, cracked. Horn (It's not the same as bone), killed the tone. Plastic, some too soft others work well. Wood, OK if dense but not as bright as bone. Metal, works fine.

Other alternates?

Greg N
Click to expand...

Just to add that horn and bone are different things since bone is made of osseeous tissue and horn is made of keratin, the same thing hair is made of. I wonder what a harder keratin like tortise shell would be like for a nut. Not the most conservationist minded thing but it would be interesting to know how it worked.

By the way Cliff Boardwell uses wood nuts on some of his basses.
 
#13
+ 1 for the Corian idea. I just installed a Fishman pickup on one of my acoustic guitars, and I used Corian for the saddle. Both plugged and unplugged the guitar sounds good, and the material worked well with a minimum of tools.
 
#18
The criteria for nut material are:

1) softer than the string material

2) Hard enough to support string tension and not catch string windings

3) Flexible enough not to spontaneously crack

4) Fairly easy to work

Any material that fits these criteria will sound good on open notes. Brass, being the most dense of the desired material, often gives open notes more clarity.

My favorite has always been bone because it sounds nice, looks great and gets nicer-looking with age, and is easy to work. The only drawback is that it stinks when grinding and you need to use a mask to keep from breathing it. My second favorite is Corian, which also happens to come in bone colr, as well as many mineral colors, which I have used. It polishes up to look like real granite.

I will sometimes use Delrin on guitars and basses whose strings do not pull straight across the nut, because the windings don't hang up in the slots when cut properly.
 
#20
I remembered there's a piece of pipestone in my garage waiting for a project. It's very easy to work and I had half a thought to try making a nut out of it. After finding this thread, I'm not so sure it's worth the effort. It meets the Frondelli Criteria listed above, though it 's probably too soft. I expect the slots would wear quickly which might not be a problem with tuning, but changing a string would require keeping the string out of the nut until it was nearly at pitch. I suppose I can test a piece to see what happens under compressive force.
 

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