Should I swap plastic bridge pins for bone or wood?

Mellish · April 2022

So who's this Steve then?

Evan · April 2022

bertie said:

Mellish said:

@bertie ; maybe that's more to do with licencing than him personally. That's a pure guess on my part, though. I have had problems with his bone saddles but years ago. Mostly I use bone but Antique Acoustics does lovely galalith pins if you're interested

Ive ordered bespoke stuff before from a guy in the UK - he was very good, well packaged etc. Cant remember his name, sure it was Steve ............................... I'll see if I can find "something" with his name/site on

EDIT

Chris Alsop

You just knew it began with “S”, didn’t you. I’ll Google this Steve bloke.

bertie · April 2022

Evan said:

bertie said:

Mellish said:

@bertie ; maybe that's more to do with licencing than him personally. That's a pure guess on my part, though. I have had problems with his bone saddles but years ago. Mostly I use bone but Antique Acoustics does lovely galalith pins if you're interested

Ive ordered bespoke stuff before from a guy in the UK - he was very good, well packaged etc. Cant remember his name, sure it was Steve ............................... I'll see if I can find "something" with his name/site on

EDIT

Chris Alsop

You just knew it began with “S”, didn’t you. I’ll Google this Steve bloke.

no good, he's retired

BillDL · April 2022

@bertie I know exactly how you feel about the use of elephant ivory. Even though it is most probable that the person has made the bridge pins from old ivory that existed in some other form long before trade restrictions and probably has some documentation to prove its age, I still don't like the idea of having elephant tusk material on anything I own. I have a similar dilemma with something in a box in my Mother's loft. My Father was a saddler in Africa and for most of his years there he had to buy leather that was tanned in the UK and imported, however once in a while a local leather supplier was able to offer more exotic hides like antelope. He bought some superbly soft leather from elephant ear some time around the late 60s or early 70s. The story behind it was that game rangers had been monitoring a herd and a younger one had died from natural causes. In those days somebody would certainly have removed the tusks from the carcass, but it would have taken somebody with knowledge of preserving leather to use the ears. Although I do not doubt that is the story my Father was given (because I'm sure he would have asked whether it had been hunted), I have no way of authenticating the history. It could be that a large piece of elephant ear leather could be worth quite a lot of money, but it makes me feel a bit sick when I see and handle it.

Oh yeah, fossilised walrus and woolly mammoth ivory. I admit that they look a bit different to bleached bone or similar animal products, but are they really going to make your guitar sound any better?

https://www.guitarsaddles.com/products.asp

What's next? Rhinoceros horn, giant panda baculum, hen's tooth?

If somebody really wants the overall appearance of ivory for anything, the closest I have seen in terms of appearance is "vegetable ivory" from the seed of certain palm trees. It is easily as hard or possibly harder than any plastic I've seen used on guitars (except maybe the hard urea based plastic used for the nuts on guitars by Yamaha and others), but vegetable ivory isn't brittle like bone, horn and animal ivory. I've seen loads of very hard objects like buttons, chess pieces, knife handles etc carved from the seeds of African fan palms but more recently I've seen goods carved from the South American Tagua Nut. Discussed by a luthier HERE. The alternative Tusq pins also look nice, but they are expensive and the edges of the string grooves can crack off quite easily.

bertie · April 2022

BillDL said:

@bertie I know exactly how you feel about the use of elephant ivory. Even though it is most probable that the person has made the bridge pins from old ivory

quite probably, but the mere fact he's willing to sell regardless is an immediate "you're out" for me

Evan · April 2022

I wouldn’t object morally to wearing a fur coat that came from the dim and distant past, it’d seem such a waste and sort of disrespectful to the animal to turn my nose up at it just to make myself feel all holier than thou, though I’m definitely dead against killing animals for fur in the present day.

I would object on stylistic grounds though, I’d look like a right old tart.

Mellish · April 2022

@bertie ; "No good, he's retired". I wondered why his workshop was closed

artiebear · April 2022

As others have said, no difference except brass which introduces an awful "zing" to the string, in a most unmusical way. One of my guitars came equipped with "mammoth ivory" pins. I was totally ignorant of the fact for 3 years after receiving it. I actually found the whole thing a bit distasteful, worried that it was simply a way of describing ivory obtained from a much more contemporary creature ? ( I haven't been inclined to do much research in this area, others may know better ). In truth the guitar sounds just the same with plastic pins.

Got a few with ebony pins, guess what ? they sound just the same as plastic pins.

TheMadMick · April 2022

Try it and find out. It's not expensive unless you go for the Martins.

ICBM · April 2022

artiebear said:

One of my guitars came equipped with "mammoth ivory" pins. I was totally ignorant of the fact for 3 years after receiving it. I actually found the whole thing a bit distasteful, worried that it was simply a way of describing ivory obtained from a much more contemporary creature ? ( I haven't been inclined to do much research in this area, others may know better ).

No, mammoth ivory is a real thing - there are thousands of dead mammoths in the permafrost in Siberia... maybe millions, since even a dead mammoth that was scavenged or completely decomposed would retain the tusks. It's apparently quite common to find them, and it's a legitimate source of the material. It's not hugely expensive as it can't be substituted for elephant ivory normally, since it's a very different colour due to ageing over thousands of years.

My '71 Martin D12-35 apparently has a walrus ivory nut, which I think is now illegal to sell as well - although I could be wrong. I'm not actually a fan - it tends to 'grab' the strings when tuning, in a way that hard plastic (eg Corian) and bone don't seem to... especially annoying on a 12-string. It's not quite bad enough to bother changing it, although I have thought about it. I'll never sell the guitar though, so it's not an issue from that point of view.

Evan · April 2022

I’ll get some from Amazon (bone with abalone) - they’re about 13 quid and get decent reviews. They’re made by Crosby.

DavidR · April 2022

IVORY PINS. Tips for the unwary.

Some pins advertised as ivory are plastic, but ivory coloured.
Acoustic Guitar Bridge Pins Pegs-6pcs with 1pc Bridge Pin Puller Remover，Ivory : Amazon.co.uk: Musical Instruments & DJ

Mammoth ivory pins? All the way from from Russia? For £2 a set on Amazon UK? (Yeh right! This would fail the 'if it's too good to be true, it's not true' test IMO).
Set of six guitar bridge pins cream / ivory with pearl abalone inlay : Amazon.co.uk: Musical Instruments & DJ

I've never tried ivory. - mammoth, elephant or any other sort. I would expect it to be little different or worse than bone. Also, it shouldn't be for sale should it?
Dealing in items containing ivory or made of ivory - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

:-(

Mellish · April 2022

@DavidR ; IMO no, ivory bridge pins (or in ANY form) should not be for sale, nor should FMI be harvested. It's just my opinion but I think it's wrong

ICBM · April 2022

‘Ivory’ is a colour name as well as a material, so I don’t think the descriptions on Amazon are wrong - I don’t think anyone would expect to get actual ivory pins for that sort of price even if it was legal.

I don’t like the colour of mammoth ivory anyway. I know it’s fashionable that everything should look like it’s been gigged in a smoky bar since the 1930s now, but personally I’m not a fan of nicotine staining and mammoth ivory reminds me too much of it.

I really don’t understand the prejudice against “plastic” - not all “plastics” are soft crap, in fact some of the hardest and most durable materials are types of (usually thermosetting) plastics. For example you won’t find snooker balls made from ivory any more... because phenolic resin is a superior material in every way.

CE1 · April 2022

ICBM said:

‘Ivory’ is a colour name as well as a material, so I don’t think the descriptions on Amazon are wrong - I don’t think anyone would expect to get actual ivory pins for that sort of price even if it was legal.

I don’t like the colour of mammoth ivory anyway. I know it’s fashionable that everything should look like it’s been gigged in a smoky bar since the 1930s now, but personally I’m not a fan of nicotine staining and mammoth ivory reminds me too much of it.

I really don’t understand the prejudice against “plastic” - not all “plastics” are soft crap, in fact some of the hardest and most durable materials are types of (usually thermosetting) plastics. For example you won’t find snooker balls made from ivory any more... because phenolic resin is a superior material in every way.

It’s down to fashion and perception. Plastic is now seen s being cheap and therefore poor quality. If you look back in old magazines from the 20s and 30s plastic is a massive selling point on a wide range of products as it was the new wonder material. And as you very rightly point out some plastics are far superior at the job compared to traditional materials, but musicians as a whole aren’t always the most forward looking group of people.

artiebear · April 2022

ICBM said:

artiebear said:

One of my guitars came equipped with "mammoth ivory" pins. I was totally ignorant of the fact for 3 years after receiving it. I actually found the whole thing a bit distasteful, worried that it was simply a way of describing ivory obtained from a much more contemporary creature ? ( I haven't been inclined to do much research in this area, others may know better ).

No, mammoth ivory is a real thing - there are thousands of dead mammoths in the permafrost in Siberia... maybe millions, since even a dead mammoth that was scavenged or completely decomposed would retain the tusks. It's apparently quite common to find them, and it's a legitimate source of the material. It's not hugely expensive as it can't be substituted for elephant ivory normally, since it's a very different colour due to ageing over thousands of years.

My '71 Martin D12-35 apparently has a walrus ivory nut, which I think is now illegal to sell as well - although I could be wrong. I'm not actually a fan - it tends to 'grab' the strings when tuning, in a way that hard plastic (eg Corian) and bone don't seem to... especially annoying on a 12-string. It's not quite bad enough to bother changing it, although I have thought about it. I'll never sell the guitar though, so it's not an issue from that point of view.

Thanks for the info. Not as horrific as I feared, but still just seems like another pointless attempt to add value without any tonal improvement.

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Should I swap plastic bridge pins for bone or wood?

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