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I use deer foot bone.Much denser than cow bone.The older the animal, the better as they get denser with age and most cows are buctured at a young age.

It's LMI and Stewmac for me, at least for awhile. I did the pet store thing and got good material and lots of it for the money, but the stench from my dust collector stayed for days, so I had to empty the bag. I'll wait until I'm ready to empty it again, then maybe I'll cut more bone.

dem bones dem bones dem dryyy bones.....

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Chuck…Next time you have prime rib for dinner, try to cut and shape the bone into a useable blank. The idea here is not to use this bone but to see if you can get past the smell, before you go through the trouble of getting a bone that is acceptable to build nut blanks from.

Martial artists break bricks and boards in order to strengthen and align the structure of there bones. These micro fractures that accrue cause the bone to become stronger and denser. It would be best to use a bone from a cow that is a master martial artist. Just be cautious that the cow doesn’t kick your butt when you try to get his bone.

Sorry…I couldn’t resist.

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Rich S

"The inconvenience of poor quality will linger long after the thrill of a bargain has been forgotten"

I'm going to use the dog/yard method. I have a stash of 1 year aged cow bone. Dog and bug picked over 4 seasons.
You guys have your Camel and fancy bones. I'll have Gen u wine 84 Meat Packing Cow Bone Saddle and Nuts in my Kitchen Guitars

Fresh bone is best, saw mid section of femur into manageable billets for later conversion as Hesh had shown and discard the rubbish. Pre-clean the bone by placing it in a wire cage so the dogs can't get at it, and leave it in the sun near an ants nest. The ants will do an excellent job of cleaning things up to the finest degree prior to boiling thereby preventing the water from becoming as contaminated which helps produce cleaner bone.

Cheers

Kim

Jake and Pixey do not like your method! (Our Golden Retrievers

I made my own from pet store stock as well ... but the smell, and effort to get stock thats flat and square wasnt worth my time. My local supplier gets his from japan and the quaility is excellent, the price reasonable

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

The nut in my lastest build was one I cut from a petsmart bone. I should have changed the saw blade to a finer tooth blade. I just cut one strip and got two 1/4" nut blanks from it. I thickness it with a fence on my OS sander and with my belt sander. The reason I did it was I didn't like the first nut as it was too thin and I didn't feel like ordering two blanks for $12 and $15 S&H. And this bone was yellowish so I didn't have to soak it in tea or coffee. I like the vintage look. Stinks like hell when you cut it and it starts to smoke. And I have a terrible sense of smell.
Any of you just put it on an ant hill for a while first? I think the idea of cutting it into blanks first and then boiling makes sense to me. What if you baked the blanks along with your tops?

On at least three separate occasions, while i have been processing bone (which as you all know produces a super disgusting smell) a customer has walked in and said "mmmm, smells good, what's cooking?"

Gross!

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

OK the results of my little test using Dawn dish washing detergent are in and the results were not good....

Today David and I cut up the pieces pictured in my pictures earlier in this thread and the bone was greasy, very greasy..... As David suspected the boiling, even with a detergent, assisted the grease in permeating the bone... The bone was so very greasy inside that it left globs of black, stinky grease on David's band saw guides and blade... Needless to say I felt bad for David for the mess that I made of his bandsaw.

So with this said I don't want this to happen to anyone else here so please completely disregard the method that I was trying using a dish washing detergent and boiling. My apologies if anyone has already tried this.

Thanks

So much for trying to reinvent the wheel!

Hmmm .. might be good for electrics with a trem system Hesh.... the self-lubing bone nut ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

My sentiments exactly. That is of course unless it comes down to beer or nuts.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
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Maybe they just finished eating a meal at the "Road Kill Cafe'".

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Myself, I actually like MOP nuts.