Official Luthiers Forum!

I have pretty dumb question, but as Bruce said yesterday, the only dumb question is the one that is not asked. So here it is anyway :

Would it be ok to use UHMW and cut nuts and saddles out of it? i just bought a 3 pound bag of white blocks and the thought crossed my mind ! Would you recommend it to the hobbyist that i am ? TIA, i'm also open to all suggestions of material you have tried other than bones

Serge
Serge Poirier38749.3047685185

No, too soft Serge.

Remember that little science project of my son's? The G string of a Medium Martin 80/20 required 57 lbs. of tension on our mockup to tune it to pitch.

What you need is cow bone. But, since experience is the best teacher, try some and see if you like it.

uhmw is too soft. corian kitchen scrap is usable, as is micarta.

but when good bone blanks only cost around $3 each for top quality material why worry about the alternative stuff. when you consider how much of your treasure and time is invested in a build, $6.00 at he end for a nut and saddle along with $2.00 for good strings is a very small thing.crazymanmichael38749.3174189815

Perhaps Serge has another reason besides $'s for not wanting to use bone?

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Thanks guys, it was exactly why i didn't want the bones, it's the smell, since the archives of the company i work for are in my shop, i would not want my boss to act like Hesh's dawg! I like the sheeps horn idea though. Are there other alternatives such as, don't know, old marble tiles or other hard stuff that i would be able to use for this ?

Serge

Michael, thanks for the corian and micarta tips, is corian and micarta from kitchen counter tops? and if so, is it manageable on a drum sander? TIA

SergeSerge Poirier38749.3746990741

It sands easily, and you can get all you want for free, if you find a nice person who works installing kitchens. They throw away more pieces of this stuff in a day or a week than you will use in a year.
It isn't as nice as bone, which is really the best but it will pass...I use it for cheapo guitar repairs.

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Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Thanks Hesh, it might be possible for me to get some from here, i'll take that into consideration but i'm still open for more ideas to choose from , dealing with strength and aesthetics, so i want a wide array of ideas.

Serge

Thanks Mark, other ideas ?

if you shape the bone by hand you avoid the burning smell but it does take a lot longer.

ivory smells just as bad.

the artificials like corian have their own rather nasty chemical smell which i find more unpleasant than bone etc.

have never tried marble but it would not be easy to cut and shape and i don't think it would produce a very agreeable tone.

a lot of things have been tried by a whole host of different players over a lot of years and bone is still the concensus best choice.

but hey, it's your time...crazymanmichael38749.388587963

thanks Michael, i guess i'll have to bring my drum sander into the garbage room of the building when i do that stuff!

forgot to ask; how are you using a drum sander on nuts and saddles?

I agree with Michael, Corian does have a particularly nasty smell if it gets hot going through the thickness sander. I don't notice any smell if I sand it by hand, but bone doesn't smell bad worked by hand either.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

I never did it yet, i would probably do it over the drum, a bit like Bruce does it with a holder, semi free handed .

Then there is Tusq, graphite, fossilized ivory, mother of pearl (favored by many mandolin people), none of which I have used however, so I can't give you any details. Brass, ebony, plasic (yuck). Any more? Really, go with bone, shape it by hand; you'll be fine.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Thanks Arnt, it gives me more to choose from now, i will be looking into those!


Serge

Al posted some info a while back on shaping bone with a hand plane. That would cut down on the smell.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Thanks for the tip Brock! and thanks for the Magazine and t-shirt, just received them today!

Serge

Here's some info I received from a professional guy who works with Corian, and BTW Martin Guitar uses Corian on some of their guitars.

"Cris, Corian is acrylic "ballasted" with marble
powder, although Corain is expensive at $350-$700 a
sheet it would be more expensive if it was solid
acrylic. The marble content accounts for the WEIGHT
of the material, it weighs just about as much as solid
stone.

Having said that, it works well with normal carbide
tooling. YES it's tougher to work than most wood.
Having said that he material is CONSISTENT which makes
it easier to work in some ways than wood, there's no
grain.

The typical Corian workshop uses a large radial arm
saw to cut down Corian sheets, then a normal 10" table
saw to cut it into strips. Individual Corian
fabricators are usually equipped with a 10" chop saw,
a 4 x 24" belt sander and an armada of 3 horsepower
routers. The primary router bits used are 1/2" single
flute, 1/2" double flute and 1" flush cutter. These
combined with various straight edges and jigs enable
the Corian fabricator to "carve" out a variety of
profiles. Edge detail is accomplished with smaller
routers like the Porter-Cable 690 series using 1/4"
roundover, 3/8" roundover or several different ogees.
That's for kitchen countertop fabrication...

For your purposes if you have a good bandsaw blade...
SAVE it! Corian will eat up your bandsaw blade twice
as fast as hardwood by my estimate. Having said that
it might not be too bad for the small amount of
material you need to cut. We cut down up to a hundred
10' sheets in a week, our notmal tool rotation is to
re-sharpen blades once a week.

Abrasives work quite well, coarse abrasives leave a
surprisingly smooth finish. Use a reciprocating
spindle sander if you've got one. For a recent
project we had to face a piece of millwork with 1/4"
Corian, instead of re-ordering 1/4" goods (1/2" is the
norm) the millworking contractor milled 1/2" material
down to 1/4" in their panel sander. an abrasive
planer does the same job."

CrowDuck

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Chris Nielsen
Soquel, CA.

How about Iron wood, has anyone tried that for nut or saddle. It's preaty dense you know.

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

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"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Over on one of the Resonator forums there was a discussion about a material called Ebonex. Some of the top reso builders are capping their saddles with it. I did some research, and found that Ebonex is a paper based phenolic material. It is made using heat and pressure, and the materials 'polymerize'. Anyway, it is suppossed to be extremely dense and uniform, and the polymerzation process does something special to the molecules(I'm not a scientest). I'm planning on buying a sheet of this stuff(it ain't cheap) to make some caps for my reso saddles, and I'll probably make an regular acoustic saddle/nut as well.

CrowDuck

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Chris Nielsen
Soquel, CA.

Hey guys,

I just picked up a small chunk of impregnated ebony from Larry Davis just
for the purpose of testing it out as nut material. With the limited
experience I have making guitars I don't think my feedback will be more
than how it is to work and how it compares to my limited experience with
bone, but I'll give some feedback nonetheless. I am interested in trying it
out and defintiely excited about the aesthetic element it offers. I'll keep
you posted.

Cheers,
-Dave

P.S. As I haven't used it yet, any technical questions should probably be
directed to Larry!

Serg,here is some corian I aquired from a guy that does kitchen installs. I cut it on the band saw & ran it through the thickness sander. I leave it in about 12 inch strips and then cut it to length as needed. It's very easy to work with & free!! This was just some scrap that the guy was going to throw out & I have nuts and saddles for about 50 guitars.




DaleH38749.9584953704