Official Luthiers Forum!

What are your opionions of Tusq nuts and saddles and other artificials v. bone.
Does artificial work better for certain types of music-blues etc. Isn't TUSQ the name of a Fleetwood Mac album?

Tusq is fine. I've had it on four Taylor guitars and it's great. Bone however is the chosen product for most handmade guitars.

Natural products are thought of in a bit better light as being better. I personally like real cow bone better. I even prefer the bleached variety to natural bone, because it's prettier to my eye.

Bleached bone is said to be somewhat weaker and less durable than natural bone.

There is nothing wrong with Tusq.

From a guitar players point of view...meaning my ears, I think Tusq is a cheap way out for most BIG manufacturers from spending any more money on their instruments than they have to. In my opinion, Tusq is junk. I replaced a neighbor's nut and saddle on his Seagull guitar a few months ago.
Wow!!! did that guitar wake up. I used bone.
I was as impressed as he was.
Just a guitar player's opinion. My ear's tell me so.
Use bone...you won't be sorry!
Walter

BobJ,
Tusq is a particular brand of artificial Polymer. It is good for and used a lot when replacing the Plastic that many manufaturers put on their electric guitars. It is slipery and works well with Floyd Rose and other heavy use tremolo setups. Then there is Delrin, another man made material that is very slippery and often sold as SLIP STONE. There are other materials like Micarta, which Martin used for years. I DON'T like Micarta in fact I hate it! I sold all the Micarta I had on Ebay a while back. I won't use it. It is soft and to me has all the tonal properties of Plastic...YUK!

I prefer bone. I do a lot of Nut replacement work and bone just seems to hold up longer, and most importantly, sounds better than the synthetics. I have used Buffalo Horn and Ivory, as well as Fossilized Ivory (expensive). The Buffalo polishes up nice, shinny and black. But is rather soft and doesn't have the tone I like (but it looks cool!). Ivory I like a lot,but it is expensive and becoming harder and harder to get...but has good tone. Fossilized Ivory is realy beautiful looking and has good tone. I got a good deal on a bunch of it from a Museum Currator. This list is in no way a complete one...there are many other materials being used. So what you realy need to do is experiment and see what sounds best to you. Dave-SKG38430.5246643519

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

Thanks to all

I would always choose bone over any kind of plastic as well, unless I need to use something more slippery. I think one of the reasons the mass makers don't use bone is because it stinks so much when you work it. They'd probably have the health & safety people on their backs.

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Pete
http://www.petewoodmanguitars.com

You ever smell that Buffalo Horn? Man...it's more like Buffalo feet or maybe some other area that I won't mention...it is realy realy bad!

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

While I have not used TUSQ saddles or nuts, I HAVE used their bridge pins and love them. Several years ago I replaced the Martin plastic pins with TUSQ and heard a significant improvement. The thing I observed was the "ring" the pins produce when you just drop them on a hard surface. I've not heard that with any other material. Have others used TUSQ pins? How do they compare with other materials?

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

jj,
I have used bone, camel bone and the Buffalo for pins (forget about pastic...yuk!). Harry Fleishman did some research on this topic and found as with everything else materials do differ in tone even if very slightly. I think his article was in American Lutherie sometime in 2004.

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

Just as I always use bone for nut and saddle I always use bone bridge pins. replacing those awful plastic pins or even ebony/holly ones with the denser bone really does seem to make a difference. Sometimes if they look wrong I'll do the old trick of dyeing them with tea or coffee to make them look a bit antique (just as the French prisoners of war did on the prison ships during the Napoleonic wars when making their models from the ham and beef bones of their rations)

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Given the way prisioners of war were treated in that period I'm suprised they didn't EAT the bones!

PS. thanks for all replys