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Description
This is a piece of customisation I made for my baroque violin bow.
I got a handful of mammoth ivory from a friend, and decided to use it to replace the snakewood screw originally fitted to the bow that also is made out of snakewood.
Ivory was widely used in 18th century violin and bow making. From an ethical point of view it isn't a good idea to use real ivory from living elephants, and since I got this piece of real mammoth ivory, I felt I could use it.
Basically, I bought the core of the screw at a violinmaker's store in Vienna (Othmar Lang's successor, Ramsaier-Gorbach).
I then cut the ivory into a fitting piece, drilled a hole into it to fit the metal core (which actually is the screw).
Then I fit it into my grandfather's standing drilling machine and worked the piece with several kinds of sandpaper and files, as if I had a lathe. After the piece got its form, I polished it in the drilling machine using only a cotton handkerchief, and fit a ~1.5ct real emerald into the tip.
Voila!

Description
This is a piece of customisation I made for my baroque violin bow.
I got a handful of mammoth ivory from a friend, and decided to use it to replace the snakewood screw originally fitted to the bow that also is made out of snakewood.
Ivory was widely used in 18th century violin and bow making. From an ethical point of view it isn't a good idea to use real ivory from living elephants, and since I got this piece of real mammoth ivory, I felt I could use it.
Basically, I bought the core of the screw at a violinmaker's store in Vienna (Othmar Lang's successor, Ramsaier-Gorbach).
I then cut the ivory into a fitting piece, drilled a hole into it to fit the metal core (which actually is the screw).
Then I fit it into my grandfather's standing drilling machine and worked the piece with several kinds of sandpaper and files, as if I had a lathe. After the piece got its form, I polished it in the drilling machine using only a cotton handkerchief, and fit a ~1.5ct real emerald into the tip.
Voila!