Product Reviews: Tusq Martin-Style Bridge Pins

by Fred Carlson

Originally published in American Lutherie #70, 2002 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013

Graph Tech Tusq

Far away at the ends of the earth is a beautiful country called Plasticland, filled with marvelous plastic trees and flowers and peopled with a rugged but gentle folk, some of whom bear striking resemblance to those little plastic Cowboys and Indians many of us grew up with. Here plastic dinosaurs roam rolling hills verdant with AstroTurf, mingling merrily with plastic cows, chickens, and deer. Lots of wondrous items in everyday use in our modern culture are the products of this little-known country, including that which I review for you here today.

Sustainable Plasticulture. I’d heard of the material called Tusq before; it’s used for guitar saddles and nuts, and sold by acompany called Graph Tech. But it never occurred to me until Iundertook the extensive research necessary for this review (readers have come to expect this level of expertise in my columns) just where Tusq comes from. Turns out the Graph Tech people have connections with a sustainable plasticulture program in Plasticland, with profits benefiting indigenous Plasticlanders. Using traditional skills passed down through generations, workers harvest the tusks of the plastic elephant that has inhabited their forests since plastic began. The tuskless elephants are confined in giant breakfast cereal boxes until the tusks regenerate, at which time they are reintroduced to the wild. In my travels researching this article, I photographed the actual harvesting process so that our readers can observe this phenomenal event. I also observed numerous other wondrous things on that trip, which I haven’t made up yet, and so I move on to...