Bridge Saddle & Nut Materials

[Brian T. Williams]

Hi,

Is there any way of confirming what material a bridge and/or nut are made from. I have just acquired a fantastic, all solid wood guitar, a real bargain, but I suspect that the bridge saddle is plastic; I'm not so sure about the nut. (I re-surfaced the saddle before re-stringing and it seemed to be very soft compared with bone and tusq, both of which I have worked in the past).

Is there any way of testing the saddle and nut, in situ on the instrument, in order to find out with any certainty.

 

Cheers.........Brian

[Paul Verticchio]

That's GREAT John.  I sincerely applaud your generosity.

Although, that explanation kinda invalidates your claim that 'nobody wants them'.

Carry on with your good work & have a great rest of the week,

Paul

 

[John]

Sorry, I should have said nobody wants them, unless they're free. 

[Russell Vance]

John,

Probably a good idea not to make assumptions regarding what I do, as you don't know. I suppose I am also good at what I do but I don't feel the need to tell people, they'll work it out for themselves.  

I gave you a list of some of the manufacturers using synthetics, and as you already know, Martin, Larrivee and Taylor use synthetics as well.

But, as you asked,  here is a list of some makers /manufacturers who use GraphTech/Tusq.:

Tom Anderson, John Suhr, Takamine, Tacoma, Washburn, Yamaha Custom Shop, Zion, Schecter, Samick, Soller, Pratley, Patrick Eggle, Simpson,  Rainsong,  Richard Guitares, Timberline, Valencia,  Aria, Carvin, Cole Clarke, Cort, Dean, Boucher, Basone, Brazen, Ernie Ball, Ibanez, Hagstrom, Guild, DGN, DBZ, Furch, DL lapsteel, Gilmour, Babic, Hohner, H.E. Design, James Tyler, Fano, Trevor Gore, Veelah, McCurdy, L. Benito Guitars, Morris Acoustic, Nash Guitars USA, JBovier, Kamaka Ukes, Kanile'a Ukes, Beedlove, Buscarino,

This list is not exhaustive and only includes the bigger makers, but you did ask.   You will also note that I did not include myself in the list as I have no affiliation with Graphtech whatsoever.   

Furthermore, synthetics such as Tusq come in a wide variety of sizes and spacings which make them ideal for production making or small volume makers - they also cost about three bucks wholesale for the pre-slotted pre-dimensioned ones which I presume is more than you charge for a making bone nut as you say you can do it cheaper?  Ditto your assertion of "faster".  

I have checked my manners at the door here, but overreaching and offensive assumptions do nothing to help the quality of this forum. 

NFA this thread. Rusty.    

[Mark Pollock]

I imagine that this is partially a matter of time period - "handmade" guitars of the 1940's probably weren't exactingly manufactured enough to have a consistently place pre-made nut work every time. A Taylor made to exacting tolerances on a CNC machine probably can have a premade nut work immediately.

 

My question now is - how much adjustment is needed on these nuts before the guitar is satisfactorily "dialed in" - whatever the hell that can even mean in a group discussion about personal preference instruments. Are these things right on once assembled, or are a few swipes with a file needed to get the slots just right?

 

I cracked up when I was Kamaka Ukes in the above list, having just replaced the original koa wood nut on one with another piece of koa - should be good for the next 50 years! It does illustrate how easy it is to make assumptions about instruments from companies that have been around for a long time and which have had many different manufacturing practices at different times.

 

Enough about making nuts from bone - anybody ever smelt their own aluminum to make a new neck for an Applause guitar?

[John]

"if you have plenty of cheap time and cost is not a factor I suppose high quality bone is a traditional choice by low volume makers or amateurs" Although I didn't find this offensive, I did think it needed another perspective. I did use the qualifier "for me" and I did specify "builder" (meaning independent) while acknowledging some manufacturers use Tusq for some of their instruments. 

I'm not sure what was offensive about my last post but I'll explain why "for me"  a bone nut is cost effective.

Sometimes when I have a 4 or 5 hundred dollar repair that at final setup needs a nut or saddle I just go ahead and make one at no charge to get it off my bench. The same goes with the odd yard sale special, I'll make a nut at a low cost to the customer to get the repair out the door. The material used is the $2 bone blank not the premium stuff. I've been repairing guitars for 30yrs, it takes me 15 min to fit a nut and cut the slots, polishing it takes longer than making it work. 

In a repair shop, quality and turnaround are everything. I've got repairs to do ....enjoy your day

 

[Perry Kiehl]

So how do you Pros feel about metal nuts on electrics?  I know a fair amount of players that like brass nuts.  There's someone selling high copper content nuts on eBay, but how much would the alloy affect tone?  Sorry for the newbie question, but I've got a MIJ guitar that's getting freshened up a bit, and the nut has seen better times.

[Russell Vance]

Brass nuts and bridge blocks/saddles etc got popular in the 70's as a sustain enhancing and "edge" giving material to the guitar tone.   The heavy bridge blocks on lead-sled heavy compressed mahogany guitars passed eventually into history and players backs have rejoiced ever since. You will occasionally see early Japanese LP style guitars with the bridge actually screwed into a large brass sustain block which is embedded into the body.

The brass nuts persist and they can really give a Strat an "ice-pick in the ear" edge when the open strings are played with the nut in the equation. They can however give a heavy dull sounding short scale LP style guitar a bit of a kick (open strings only).   I'm out of touch but there are also a couple of varieties of brass alloys used - some suit musical instruments better (bell brass?).

However, that said, brass bridge saddle blocks can and do give a very nice tone when compared to the steel blocks they replace - the modern Tele 6 block bridges with brass block saddles really seem to make a difference and, of course, Gibson TOM bridges can have the standard steel saddles replaced with brass saddles (ABRI bridge saddles are readily available) and so it goes.   In a couple of words, the brass nuts seem to enhance the brightness of the open strings and give them a more defined edge at the initial pick attack but I don't know so much about the resonance and harmonic improvements often talked about. 

Dano's have had aluminium nuts but as they are a weird combination of various sonic situations I'm not sure what contributes to what with these guitars - they sound distinct enough but it's hard to figure what is doing what.

MIJ's - particularly newer ones often respond well to a steel trem block replacement (Callaghan has a lot of this stuff at good prices) and in some cases have rubbish pickups - but,  some MIJ's have good pickups as standard - you often need to A/B them with a good Strat to work out where you are and what can be done without throwing money away.   All Strats come with a "Fender Bone" (which in just about all cases is a synthetic) - but it is part of the sound of a Strat so it figures that this is the way to go to maintain standard tone. 

But as Strat brass nuts can be got, pre-slotted,  for a few bucks why not give it a try and see what you hear - it's different and not unpleasant.  Use it with a brass slide and you can definitely cook up some action.

Regards, Rusty.

[Chris Rochow]

Charlie... here is your link you requested.

http://www.graphtech.com/products.html?CategoryID=1

 

It's not for us to 'debate' what is better.... it is the customers choice. After all.........they are the ones paying the bill ! We can guide them at best. As customers do, so do we too have opinions.

More and more customers demand TUSQ these days.  Bone is not consistent in mass distribution. Therefore, it has 'weak' areas of tone, etc. TUSQ is far more uniform. Bone was great in it's day, it's all we had.... but, this is the 21 st century now.

If you want to make money.......sell the customer what THEY want, not what we want.

[Hesh Breakstone]

I don't know Chris in my experience the customer, though well intentioned, is not always right.  And I suspect that lots of veteran repair folks may agree with me. 

 

My own experience is that my clients ask me what they should do and I let them know what I believe will do the job and why.  Again for me it's bone and my bone is locally harvested from a farm near by and these cattle use their legs and are free ranging.  I prefer to use bone from free ranging cattle because unlike animals that live their lives in a stall and only use their legs to keep from falling over... it's likely that free ranging cattle have denser bone.

 

It's gotten to the point with me That I can tell if the saddle or nut blank is very dense or not because I do this often now and I have learned to know my files and tools.  I'm happy with the density of the material that I use and so far no complaints from clients either.

 

And - I have yet to have anyone ask me for Tusq regardless of their marketing and advertising but I do have lots of Tusq nuts and saddles that I have replaced with bone at the customer's request.

 

I agree with you that it's not up to us to decide but until such time as I receive more specific requests for Tusq I won't stock it.  As such there is additional delay and cost to a customer who wants Tusq if they deal with me.  If this changes and there is more demand I will likely stock some Tusq but I doubt that I will ever stop making bone nuts in favor of Tusq. 

 

As a builder of acoustic guitars as well when my clients are paying $4K or more they seem to want real bone polished to a beautiful sheen and often the unbleached stuff tends to match the woods of the guitar better too.

 

It's great to have choices, you are correct in my view that we have to listen to our clients but I am never going to be afraid to correct them if they are in error in some belief or notion of our craft/art.  It's to me part of the value-add that I believe that I want to offer - expert advice with the ability to support what I offer and believe.

[Kerry Krishna]

Chris Wrote:

"It's not for us to 'debate' what is better.... it is the customers choice. After all.........they are the ones paying the bill ! We can guide them at best. As customers do, so do we too have opinions.

More and more customers demand TUSQ these days.  Bone is not consistent in mass distribution. Therefore, it has 'weak' areas of tone, etc. TUSQ is far more uniform. Bone was great in it's day, it's all we had.... but, this is the 21 st century now."

 

 Sorry Chris, I'm not buying any of this. If you have customers that are 'requesting Tusq' you must either have some pretty odd customers, or you possibly do not like working with bone, so you recommend tusq?  I could actually understand either of these two things. I also do not like the smell of bone being worked, but over the years, I have gotten used to it.

 As has been stated about 6 times already in this thread, most of us who do actual repair (as opposed to building) will get guitars straight from the Guitar Store , asking for bone to be installed.  I don't even keep Tusq nuts and saddles, I just fire them into the garbage can.

 As to your  "this is the 21st century now" comment, I don't really like the connotation that all of us here who have a different opinion are behind the times.

 Also I'd like to point out that if I called 'DePaul Inlay" and told him that his bone nuts and saddles were 'inconsistent in their mass distribution', I think he would laugh me into next week. I only buy quality bone nuts and saddles from Andy and there has NEVER been a single problem ever with  any of his products. 

And my customers don't have a choice about bone or Tusq. If anyone were to ask me for it or insist on it, I would send um on down the road. This is all just my opinion though... 

[Rodney Smith]

Bone vs tusq? Wow what a discussion, I'm in the bone camp, its been used with great results for a long time.
Go to Petco and buy yourself a big bleached cow bone for 5 dollars and cut 20-30 nuts out of it.

[Mark Pollock]

I'm with ya Rodney, but I soak mine in acetone for a couple of months first to get ALL of the oils out.