Looking for bone nut source.

[joehendrick]

Anyone have a source other than Ebay for bone nut blanks in bulk for a reasonable price?
Thanks
Joe

[Bluetickhound]

Not trying to be funny, but have you looked into getting bone from a butcher shop? I've heard of more than one luthier who does this, cuts and bleaches the blanks themselves and has had good results. I'm Actually thinking of giving this a go myself...

[Bill Snyder]

International Violin has bone nuts for $2.00 each.

[MikeEdgerton]

internationalviolin.com link:

http://www.internationalviolin.com/S...ord=bone%20nut

[dschonbrun]

luthier's mercantile... www.lmii.com

[HoGo]

I tend to look into soup pot when I'm looking for bone blanks. ;-)
I always keep the cow bone from soup, clean it from any meat and tendon and put it into dishwasher (together with the plates etc.).
It comes out nice clean crem color and partially degreased which is what I like. I don't bleach it, but putting it into dihydrogen peroxide (common pharmacy) for few days does the job.

[Luthier]

I buy bones from a pet supply place, cut them up and machine them down. Pawstruck.com.
Don

[joehendrick]

Thanks for the responses. I did a little research on DIY nut making from scratch and am really not interested in doing the work involved with using butane or white gas to de-grease it which from everything I read is an essential that if skipped will make a mess of glues and finishes. That's also why I'm not interested in buying off of ebay not knowing the source or process that the product comes out of.

Joe

[Clinton Johnson]

Guys before I was aware of soaking in hydrogen peroxide or white gas, I installed some raw bone on my recent build and only boiled it in water with some bleach for several hours. Now I'm concerned after learning more about it. The mandolin is still in the white, do you guys feel that I should take those back off or will the boiling in bleach be ok? I installed with CA glue. Thoughts?

[Bill McCall]

StewMac, both bleached and unbleached.

[pops1]

I have always thought cooking bone made it brittle. We never gave our dogs bones that had been cooked for that reason. Only raw bones. Haven't heard of this being brought up, but when you use a sander on bone and it gets hot it does damage the bone.

[Clinton Johnson]

Oops, I boiled the heck out of it in bleach AND formed on a sander. So will this cause the bone to eventually disintegrate and crumble to pieces? How long do I got?

Pops how do you form your bone points and nut? File?

[Frank Ford]

My bone comes from Christie, the bone lady:

CHRISLIN TRADING

[pops1]

Oops, I boiled the heck out of it in bleach AND formed on a sander. So will this cause the bone to eventually disintegrate and crumble to pieces? How long do I got?

Pops how do you form your bone points and nut? File?

I use a sander for quick removal, but like a knife I don't want it to get hot, so I don't leave it against the belt, but on and off. I do use a few different files to to most shaping. It's not going to be an immediate problem, hard to say how long.

[HoGo]

I used to cook with soda or dish detergent and bleach with H2O2 with no problems, the first nuts have been in service for almost 20 years now... No problem with finishes or glues or brittleness so far. I just made a thumbring (for archery) out of one of the older bones and it is strong as hell even it is less than 1/4" in places and "crossgrained".
These days I prefer natural color and just put the bone in dishwasher for one cycle (after being picked from the soup) to remove most grease. I've collected dozens of the bones and even the oldest in the box show no problems. I would consieder washing some of the older that I didn't degrease once again as they are kind of blotchy.

[bradlaird]

Get mine at Tractor Supply. They usually have very nice white bleached bones about 4 or 5 inches long. Slice 'em up on a band saw and you have years worth of material.

[Tom Haywood]

Get mine at Tractor Supply. They usually have very nice white bleached bones about 4 or 5 inches long. Slice 'em up on a band saw and you have years worth of material.

I decided to try this. The Tractor Supply at Thomas Crossroads had one small white bone 3" long - filled with peanut butter. I guess it will be tasty.

[Bluetickhound]

I'll be dropping by the one in Fayetteville today Tom... If they have a better selection I'll let you know.

[Tom Haywood]

Here it is. The uncut bone is from Tractor Supply. The cut one is unbleached from an online pet store. With a band saw and a bench sanding station, it took about 15 minutes to produce a fairly standard nut blank ready to be shaped, sized and slotted. I washed the bone in the dishwasher before cutting it and soaked the nut in hydrogen peroxide for about 10 minutes and it lightened up a little. It is amazing how much pride and pure satisfaction resulted from this!