Sourcing 3-degree unslotted bridge pins

[Joshua]

Hi everyone,

Did a bit of a forum search and couldn't find anything from the last 5 years or so on this topic.

For years I used 3-degree unslotted bridge pins, sourced from LMI. Most of their 3-deg unslotted pins had shell inlay and so were a no-export item. Luckily their plain Indian rosewood worked aesthetically for my guitars so that's what I always ordered.

Now of course, it's 2019, the IRW is a no-export as well, and I've burned through my stockpile of pins. Foolish of me not to plan ahead. I'm struggling to find any source for unslotted 3 degree pins. I'm not wedded to IRW, I'm open to any decent material; wood, horn, bone, milled composites, anything except cheap-looking moulded plastic pins with a visible seam!

I'm not dogmatic about the 3-degree taper; I could certainly switch to 5-degree and Stewmac carries a decent range of unslotted 5-degree pins. Looks like I might have to go that way but am already tooled up for 3-degree pins and was hoping to avoid buying new reamers.

The other option I've considered is a custom-order through Gurian, buying pins in some non-restricted material by the gross. Possible but a big outlay.

So before I go down either of those paths, I just thought I'd check in to see whether anyone else knew of an alternative source for 3-deg unslotted pins?

Thanks!

[Allen]

How many do you need? I have a gross in stock that ordered a couple months ago.

[bluefuzz]

it's 2019, the IRW is a no-export as well

Perhaps for not much longer. According to Madinter's latest newsletter 'finished musical instruments, finished musical instrument parts and finished musical instrument accessories' made from Dalbergia/Bubinga will be exempted from CITES Appendix II.

See https://mailchi.mp/madinter/breaking-news-cites-cop18

Ian

[Joshua]

Allen, thanks for the kind offer. What material are they? I'd happily buy up to 60 pins if you can part with that many and they are a dark timber species. But even 6 or 12 pins would be great to keep me going for now.

Ian, very interesting news, thanks. Looks like it's a few months before it comes into effect; I might drop LMI an email and see if this will see them beginning to allow export of their dalbergia products again. Although with the value of the Aussie dollar at the moment ...

[Allen]

Plain unslotted Indian Rosewood. I bought the gross because the CITES certificate was the same cost no matter what the amount purchased.

You can have 60 at $100 including the shipping.

[Joshua]

Thanks Allen, I'll send you a private message to organise payment.

[Joshua]

Quick update - LMI reckon they may well be able to ship things like IRW bridge pins when this decision comes into effect in a December. But not fingerboards or b+s sets.