How can you tell if a nut is plastic or bone?

[BigJimmy]

May be a stupid question....but really how can you tell?

 

[Fuelish]

May be a stupid question....but really how can you tell?

By "feel" ??? Plastic feels like plastic, bone don't...

 

[timgman]

tap your tooth on it lightly... you'll know..

 

[G Man]

one sure way to tell is to sand it ever so lightly in an inconspicuos spot. If it smells like burnt hair, its bone, if it smells like burnt plastic . . .

 

[timgman]

True... bone is stinky whenever I make one.
timg

 

[Paul_Cat]

Which is better and why?

 

[Paul_Cat]

Mine is plastic.. is this bad?

 

[G Man]

They both work fine, but bone is considered better, as it is a more dense material and therefore more efficient at transferring energy from the strings to the guitar. However, it only really has an effect on open strings, as once a string is fretted, it has no bearing on sound. Therefore, if you only play barre chords and single note leads up the neck, there isn't much of a reason to bother swapping out the plastic for bone.

 

[overdriver]

Which is better and why?

Short answer is IMO and most players, Bone is better it allows open notes to sound clearer and stronger than plastic, more sustain, that being said some of the newer type plastic, or nuts made from other material work well, not the plastic Epis come with. Unbleeched bone IMO is the way to go, IMO its harder than the bleeched and looks closer to the binding colour on Epis.

If you have no problems with the stock plastic and like the open note sound IMO not worth changing it. When playing fretted notes the nut does not come into play.

 

[overdriver]

G man why did you not tell me you were posting at the same time , LOL I could have found something else to do . LOL

 

[G Man]

Although to be fair, you did give a different take on it than I did. Same conclusion though.

 

[Cross Roads]

True... bone is stinky whenever I make one.
timg

I think bone is compact hair.

 

[Davey Rockets]

They both work fine, but bone is considered better, as it is a more dense material and therefore more efficient at transferring energy from the strings to the guitar. However, it only really has an effect on open strings, as once a string is fretted, it has no bearing on sound. Therefore, if you only play barre chords and single note leads up the neck, there isn't much of a reason to bother swapping out the plastic for bone.

Fantastic explanation! Since most of my work is with barre chords, the nut material doesn't really mean much to me.

btw, extra points for spelling "barre" correctly.

 

[Adwex]

The original nut on my R7 caused tuning issues, especially with the D and G strings. A new bone nut solved that problem, but is it the way the slots are cut, or the material? .....or a combination of both?

 

[Eminor]

I've read a lot of posts where folks mentioned the stock nuts on Gibsons not really being too well made, causing problems, etc. Consensus seems to be that tuning problems are most likely caused by improperly cut or angled string slots.

Re: nut making no difference to fretted notes - this is one of those endless bone (so to speak) of contention type issues that is completely polarized after being rehashed 1000+ times on guitar forums. I find it quite interesting that for every person forwarding the very logical argument that once a note is fretted the nut is out of the picture, there's another who firmly believes that despite such a logical argument, a new nut made of some different material than the original changed the whole tone of their guitar, fretted note or open string.

I'm with the latter group. New bone nut on my Epi Standard made the whole guitar sound better, IMO. Wished I'd kept the original bone nut on my ol' 69 SG, when I got the brass one put on the whole tone of the guitar changed and I was never really as happy with it. Of course, it still sounded great, but was subtly but definitely different. How can this be explained? It can't, it's not logical, but I know what my ears tell me.

Kinda like the old TonePros bridge/tailpiece debate really - some hear a difference, some don't, some say the strings don't vibrate past the string saddles enough to matter, some do. YMMV as we say on the intrawebs

 

[dennistruckdriver]

May be a stupid question....but really how can you tell?

If it's the original nut on an Epiphone (except perhaps for Elitist models) it is most likely plastic.

 

[diceman]

Dennis - the Elitist models are indeed bone.

Eminor - I enjoyed your post.

 

[Eminor]

thanx Diceman - have enjoyed many of yours as well.

-just an ol' dog with too many guitars.