"Celluloid Key Covering"

[Terry Neely]

A low tech way to clean bone is to find a good ant hill. Clean in no time.
Terry Neely
Cary NC

Ellsworth wrote:

> The trouble with bone is that nobody mas-produces it in the US as far as I
> know.  There is a guy who does some in Rhode Island (not many cows there) and
> he's semi-retired, not even enough to keep the harpsichord and fpo trade happy.
> Several places in Europe; The process is messy and a bit hazardous:  the bone,
> the big femur bones, are got from the slaughterhouse (lots of those in Omaha)
> - the bone is otherwise processed for feed, fertilizer etc.  They must be
> boiled out, to remove ttendon and grease, then sawn up which takes good jigs
> since the femur is very irregular and probably slippery.  Amateurs shorten
> their fingers at this stage using home bandsaws.  Resawn to the right lengths
> for fronts, tails and fronts, sold to technicians who sun-bleach them (the
> best, and very efficient way unless it's winter in New England) and glue them
> on, filing, smoothing and polishing just as you do mounting ivory.
>         Most of the earky music crowd don't want to move to Omaha.  Or even
> South St. Paul.
>         In the 19th century and before bone was used for toothbrushes,
> hairbrushes, uses where we use plastic.
>         Margaret Hood