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I never thickness sand that way. Just wrap masking tape -backwards- around a couple fingers, stick the bone to your fingers, and thickness them manually. check every few seconds, and adjust your pressure points accordingly to get the stuff evenly cut. Besides, when cut on the table saw, they come out nearly perfect anyhow. Bandsaws are for rough work and curves....

Takes but a minute....

Cool information guys! Thanks !

Thanks scott

the hardest bone

This is going to work nice for nuts and saddles

very happy.

bruce
what kind of band saw blade are you using to cut this.

Thanks Scott, the giraffe arrived today. Kind of creepy when you know what kind of animal it came from. Both pieces are very thick and should make great guitar parts.

My son, 22, heard about it and he says, that's what I want on my guitar Dad. Once again the appeal of pieces from all over the world in his guitar is appeased. Strumming love songs with cool materials of the world. Thank you Scott. Will report when I get time to cut some up.

And I plan to try a new sawing method via Mario.

Who asked about the bandsaw blade? I use a 1/4 inch general purpose blade on my 14 inch Delta, made by Olson. It so happens that I cut my neck blanks with that very blade. Neifer taught me it would also cut aluminum for jigging. And... it does.

Actually it cut the bone very well, but slowly. I simply set up a fence clamped to the tabletop, and slid the bone through with gentle pressure. It's harder to cut than solid aluminum plate actually. The finish could easily be smoothed with a benchtop belt sander.

I'm just glad I finally tried it.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Hi everyone, I haven't post but a few times on this forum and do way to much lurking. Tonite though I fell a strong need to respond.
Four years ago our Fire Dept responded to an electrcal fire in a Bone meal plant, not much of a fire but quite a bit of smoke. Shortly after ( 10 minutes) our engineer started to have cardiac symptoms, chest pain, shortness of breath, profuse sweating. After 4 years (and forced retirement) he still only has 50% lung capacity.
His condition is called Reactive airway distrss syndrome RADS and one of the main causes is burnt animal proteins. So please use those respirators. Mark

I talked about it in the thread, but did I do it, nah, I thought it was all about smell. My health too, a dust mask might not be enough. Thanks.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Here's some info on cleaning bone if you need to.

Bone Cleaning

Ron

Very interesting reading, Ron. Thanks!

Thanks for the link, Ron. Great reading! That's just enough info to keep me buying nut and saddle blanks from Chrislin Trading...and leave the pet store bones for the dogs.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is. - Francis Bacon

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Glad you got the bone--its great stuff. I do degrease it in denatured alocohol for about a week. Vut the nuts ans saddle blanks oversized and through in a jar fulll of denatured alocohol--all teh oils will rise to the top--you may need to change it out a time or two.
It will take a polish like glass with white rouge on a wheel. I also have some mastadon bone and hipo ivory I plan to try.
I ALWAYS were a respirator when working bone and horn and ivory. I've heard stories of anthrax being in ivory? Better safe than sorry.