An alternative to ivory for guitar nuts?
File this under interesting. I'm writing something that's guitar nut-related and I've been researching ivory. I stumbled across something that I thought I'd share.
A (possible) natural ivory substitute for guitar nuts.
Some background first.
In the past, elephant ivory has been used for guitar nuts and saddles. This hasn't been the case for quite a while but guitarists, being guitarists have gotten ivory lodged into our collective consciousness as a premium nut material that all others must compare against.
Well, maybe that's overstating things a little but, when one of the most popular synthetic nut materials in the world is called Tusq and has an elephant on its logo, I think it's fair to say many of us have an ivory hang-up somewhere in our minds.
Anyway, obviously, there's a pretty massive ethical issue with using elephant ivory. That's definitely out. Fossilised mammoth ivory — often used as an alternative (but sometimes just because it sounds cool) — is apparently not without its ethical issues too. Not least of these is the fact that illegal elephant ivory is sometimes mislabelled as mammoth to get past security checks and there's talk of fossilised mammoth entering the CITES lists for this reason (weird that an extinct species may end up on a list intended to protect species going extinct).
So what's a guitarist to do if they desperately want an ivory nut and aren't swayed by synthetic stuff?
Bone, usually. Unbleached bone is not quite the same but, in most cases, you'll get away with it for tone and looks. Of course, some people have ethical concerns about bone too. The bone used in guitar nuts is a by-product of the food industry so, at least, an animal didn't die just to provide a guitar nut. But that might not be enough for everyone.
Enter the tagua nut.
Tagua Nut
In my ivory research, I found reference to something known as 'vegetable ivory'. The tagua nut is from a type of palm tree, generally South American. Once its nuts are dried, they look and feel a lot like ivory. They've been used as an ivory substitute in jewellery and ornaments for ages. Also, apparently, tagua ivory was big in buttons — making up around 20% of all buttons produced in the US before plastic became common.
Once I read about tagua nuts, I ordered a couple. You can get an idea of size in the image. In hindsight, it would have been a much more clever idea to include a ruler instead of a roll of tape for scale but you get the idea.
I decided to try cut one into some nut blanks. I used a belt sander to make a flat surface and then sliced the nut with my band saw. I found a bit of an irregularly shaped void inside the nut but there was still plenty of material to make a number of nut-sized blanks.
As my own Les Paul has needed a nut replacement for ages (a cobbler's children are poorly shod 😉), I decided to experiment and I made and installed a tagua vegetable ivory nut.
First Thoughts on Vegetable Ivory Guitar Nuts
Working this stuff is a little odd. It's hard and it's not easy to cut or sand. When it's blank-sized things are easier but it takes a bit of effort to get it there.
This is compounded by the fact that it seems to want to scorch. If I tried to force a cut too fast or pressed too hard on the belt/disc sander, I could see brown burn marks form. This needs to be worked slowly.
There's a slightly soapy feeling to working it, like it's got a little natural lubrication. Perhaps this may dissipate as the cut blanks dry out. Not sure right now.
Slotting the but takes some work too. Sharp, clean files are best. That lubrication I mention tends to let the file burnish the slots rather than cutting them so, again, take care and go slowly.
Vegetable Ivory Aesthetics
It looks great. The piece I have is quite uniform and has very few natural flecks or spotting.
It's got a natural ivory colour (duh!) and it polishes up really well. I think it looks fantastic. Given its historical uses, I'm not surprised.
Tagua Tone
Using the Paul Reed Smith dropping-nuts-on-the-table method, the tagua blank has a less resonant tone than the bone blank I used for comparison. The bone seems a little brighter. I don't have an ivory or mammoth blank to compare them to right now, though.
I didn't do any AB recording so we're basing the on-guitar tone on my memory. That's hardly scientific, I know. With that caveat, the tagua nut sounds a little warmer than the stock corian nut it replaced. It also feels a little more 'balanced' across the strings. And, as I'll be asked, there's plenty of sustain — at least comparable to the original nut.
Of course, tone is ridiculously subjective, difficult to describe, and frequently overly fixated-upon. Take all of this with a grain of salt. What I'll say to sum this section up is that I prefer the tone of the tagua nut to the corian original.
The bottom line
Is tagua a viable ivory substitute for guitar nuts?
Dunno. Maybe. My experience has been promising. It's far too early to tell how the nut will age and wear but, my feeling is that it's probably going to be positive here too.
On the con side, you'll need to be happy making your own blanks and you'll need a little patience. The size and shape of the void (if any) in different nuts might mean you get more or fewer nut blanks — or maybe none — from any particular nut. Also, being a natural material, different pieces will vary and may not give the same results universally.
On the pro side, they can look great and can sound really good. I'd guess that they'll also wear well.
Oh, a final thought: When working these, I mentioned a slightly lubricated feel. I've read that these nuts, when harvested are completely gelatinous and they dry and harden over a period of weeks. I think I'm going to leave my freshly cut blanks to see if they dry further. Now that they're cut, they may continue to harden too.
It's too early to tell if vegetable ivory will make it as a wider substitute for ivory guitar nuts. For many this is a question nobody asked. If you're repairing vintage instruments, or you crave something ivory like, it's definitely got some potential, though.
I'm impressed by my limited experience, though and would encourage others to run with this and see how it works out for you. You can get them on eBay. Search for whole tagua nuts (affiliate link) or similar. Adding 'whole' seems to filter out a lot of the tagua jewellery that you'll have to sift through.
Luthiers, check it out and let me know.
So, a bit of an experiment this week. Hope that's ok.
P.S. I'd found all of this tagua stuff and had written an email to my mailing list (you should subscribe) when a final poke around the net unearthed a TDPRI thread where this idea is discussed. D'oh! However, it doesn't look like they ever got to try tagua nut so I'm happy to throw this email into the world and still claim that I'm an incredible innovator. 😉
P.P.S. I've also, since, seen Ben Crowe of Crimson Guitars using Tagua for making picks.
P.P.P.S At the time of posting this, I've had the tagua nut on my Les Paul for about six months and it's been absolutely fine. I'm calling it a win.
This article written by Gerry Hayes and first published at hazeguitars.com
