Thanksgiving Thoughts: Are Guitars Vegan? (Spoiler: Not Really.) 🦃🎸

As everyone sits around carving turkeys and passing mashed potatoes, we here at Guitar Build Workshop found ourselves pondering one of life’s deeper questions:

Are guitars vegan?

Short answer: nope.Long answer: it’s complicated—and kind of funny.

You see, a lot of traditional instruments aren’t exactly tofu-friendly. In fact, if you’ve ever cracked open The Foxfire Book from the Classic Appalachian How-To Book Series and read the section on “How to Make a Banjo,” you’ll quickly realize that early luthiers were… let’s say resourceful. (If you’re eating, maybe finish your pumpkin pie first. It gets gross. Trust me.)

At GBW, our guitars are mostly vegan—but not entirely. A few small components break the vegan rule:

• Inlays: Mother of Pearl and Abalone (straight from the ocean’s jewelry box)

• The Nut: That little piece between the fretboard and the headstock—traditionally made of bone

  
  

Cheaper guitars use plastic nuts, but the good stuff? That’s usually cow, ox, or camel bone.

Years ago, we did a commission build with an “outdoors” theme, and I thought, why not make the nut out of buffalo horn? It sounded perfect—rugged, wild, uniquely American. So I did the research, found the right color, tracked down a supplier, shaped it by hand, and proudly installed it.

Then came the first swipe with my StewMac diamond-encrusted nut file.Snap.

Turns out, all bone (and horn) is not created equal. Buffalo horn may look cool and make for a great campfire story, but it’s nowhere near as tough as good ol’ Tennessee cow bone. 

Lesson learned.

So this Thanksgiving, as you guitar builders and future guitar builders stare at that turkey carcass and wonder if you could repurpose the wishbone into a guitar nut—take it from us at GBW:It’s a rabbit hole that’s not tone-enhancing. 🐇🎶

Stick to eating the bird, not building with it.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Guitar Build Workshop!

Turkey playing a guitar