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Why Don't MIA Fenders Come With Bone Nuts?
- Thread starter HiEnd Basses
- Start date
No experience with bone for nuts, but I've done some knife scales from bone and it is not a very consistent materiel. By that I mean hardness varies from so hard it's brittle to soft enough to soak and bend. Trying to mass produce a particular part from bone would require a massive supply and every buy would be a crap shoot. I'm sure it would be possible to develop a hardness standard and grade bone that way, but that would simply drive up the price of an already (comparatively) expensive bit of raw stock when compared to the materiel currently used.
In addition to the above there is also the fact that bone dust is a very common vector for nasty lung infections which is why it is rarely seen in any mass production process involving grinding, outside of being ground for meal.
In addition to the above there is also the fact that bone dust is a very common vector for nasty lung infections which is why it is rarely seen in any mass production process involving grinding, outside of being ground for meal.
16 billion tortoises whole-heartedly agree with you.
I do bone nut replacements on my acoustic guitars, heck, occasionally mother of pearl for a real nice one, but no point in doing so on any of my basses. Micarta, Corian, Tusc and many of the other synthetics are frankly just as good soundwise, and from a production standpoint a hell of a lot easier to use.
Big fan of Corian, personally.
Big fan of Corian, personally.
My dream MIA Fender bass would have a neck made of Polar Bear femur and would have zero-fret with a graphtech string spacer.
You said bone and nut in the same sentence heh he, heh he.
The same reason why they don't come with real tortoise shell for the tort pickguard.
Leave the poor animals alone.
I'm more concerned that it's cut properly instead of what it's made of.
The bovine tibia is the preferred bone, it's very dense, back in the 18th century and earlier is was used for the face of small planes. It's the bone that takes the most stress.
There was a guy here who claimed he could hear the presence of a speck of dust in a piezo pickup. And everybody believed it.
Hmm...I'm willing to bet that claim was met with a healthy dose of skepticism.
I recall Roger Sadowsky commenting that installing a properly-fitted nut is one of the most important and technically challenging parts of building a bass.
One of the saddest and most annoying things about TB is that it wasn't met with skepticism.
Careful, there, or you'll rile up the plants rights activists, and then we'll all be sunk!
I can vouch for the other end of the scale - it's also one of the easiest things to screw up!
