Official Luthiers Forum!

So, I'm reading the bone source thread,
and have problems getting tall bone nuts for lap steels,
(they have taller ones!),
and keep looking at the bones my dogs have cleaned up for me.
Then today I took a piece of scrap corian I've had for a while and milled up some stock for nuts.
Any input on the tonal aspects?
Or, should I start making "dog" bone nuts?
The corian doesn't look too bad..........
vizually................

I recently put one on a build and it seemed to work well enough. The customer request a non-bone nut and corian seemed like a reasonable alternative to me. I'll stick with bone unless otherwise requested though.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Corian makes a good nut. I can't compare it to bone tonally but I can't discern anything particularly wrong or unnatural about the tone. It certainly machines and sands nicely...having a consistency much like bone It cuts cleanly with a thin bi-metal blade. It comes in a lot of different off-white colors too. Don't get pure white though. That does stick out as unnatural...so that's a consideration.

One can get a lifetime supply of Corian almost free.....so that's a consideration too My local guy gave me a half a dozen sample tiles measuring about 5" x 5". Of course, they are all pure white...and useless. But he said he'd sell me a box for $25. I can't remeber how many tiles that was but it constituted a lifetime supply of nuts. I think I made sixteen nuts out of one tile.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Some of the Corian colors are softer and more brittle than others."Cameo" white is a little less glaring than "glacier" white, and then there is also "bone", which is a bit more tan. Corian works more easily than real bone, but is not as durable. It is probably not as durable as "TUSQ", which would be another choice for a synthetic material.
I do have a few lifetimes supply of corian if I used it exclusively for nuts and saddles, but I would rather cheat the dogs out of a few chew toys for my better instruments. I think bone and the various legal ivories are a better choice for nut material.

I've not tried it for nuts, but it works pretty well for saddles. It has a tendency to chip or dent if a string rides on a too-sharp corner. I use "Vanilla" as an off-white. Samples of 2x2, 4x4, or 10x10 (about 1/2" thick) from here:
http://www2.dupont.com/Surfaces/en_US/p ... =undefined

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David Malicky

Including Martin. All my supply has been free.....cutoffs from the countertop fabricators. The usual scrap is 1/2" by 3/4"-7/8" by 25" long.
Regarding bone, my main supply has been dog bones (cow shin bones) for the last 20 years or so.

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John

PM me your phone # and I'll call you when I'm ready.

You could talk the peel off a banana!

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

It's easy if you're a good dancer and you buy the banana dinner first.

http://www.coriansamples.com is the place to go for small bits of Corian. So far as I can tell, being run by DuPont, they have every available colour and a 4"x4" piece which'll net you a lot of nuts is $2. I haven't had the chance to try them out yet, but I got some samples that are pretty much dead ringers for polished bone many moons ago.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Thanks all.
I'll give it a try.
Oh, by the way,
and I'm not kidding here,
try peeling a banana from the bottom
It's much easier.
Chimps do it that way.