Crafting a new nut.

[aliasphobias]

That horn should polish up real well. Can't wait to see the finished results Bence.

Best.

[btoth76]

Hello again!

 

Two 4/1.5/0.25" buffalo horn blanks have arrived to me. Very nice looking material: mostly black, but with white streaks here and there. It is surprisingly light, feels life plastic foam.

 

 

Until You start working with it! Did I mention how hard to work with camel bone? No it isn't compared to buffalo. Until I cut that tiny slice for the nut, it ate away all the teeth of my saw!

 

Unpolished it looks exactly like a piece of ebony. This one is being made for the 1978 Les Paul Recording. The guitar has reversed binding - black on outside. I think, it will look much more graceful with a black nut:

 

 

I'll be back when it's done. Probably, next week. ;)

 

Bence.

[btoth76]

Hello again!

 

I have removed the nut from the 1978 Gibson Les Paul Recording. Probably, it had the nut replaced many times during the decades. The one I have extracted was a bone one. The lesson this time was to wear googles when removing a bone nut. It was glued in very strongly. I had to do the same thing as on the Classic Custom: cut it in half and break it out with a plier. Small pieces of bone were shooting right into my face.

 

 

The slot is very clean, so no need to clean it up with a nut seating file. That's good news.

 

Bence.

[btoth76]

As a final update...

 

I got ready with the buffalo horn nut.

 

 

It was the hardest material to work with.

 

 

The conclusion of this experiment is: there is no tonal difference between all these bones and horns. All sound the same. Choose between them according to Your aestetical needs.

 

Bence.

[stein]

 

 

I put the tailpiece back and tuned up the guitar. The slots on the Graphtech Tusq XL were cut perfectly, I didn't had to touch them. The guitar sounded great, as all problems related to the worn nut were gone. No rattling of the low-E string, no wolftones on the higher strings. Most importantly: as it's Teflon-coated, the issue of sticking strings - common problem with the stock Corian nuts - was gone. I was very pleased with it: excellent product, that can be installed easily by anyone.

 

...

All over this thread, you touch on a lot of good points.

 

Thought it would be worth mentioning a few things, as well as reinforcing a few.

 

First thing I wanted to say, a lot of the reasons, maybe the ONLY reason you are experiencing "success" isn't just the materiel, but the fact you did a VERY good job on the slots themselves. I have found that pretty much any materiel gives good results, and most issues are the result of badly cut slots. Also, cleaning up or improving slots on a nut with issues gives good results, too. I could go on, but...

 

What I really wanted to point out, was some of the best reasons WHY one might want to replace a nut, is string spacing. Adjusting that can have a major impact on how the guitar plays and feels. One example/idea is for those that have issues with the high E sliding off the fretbaord, the whole thing could be shifted toward the bass side. Another is perhaps wanting to gain more space between strings. I don't know that there is a set standard here, and I only came to notice such things when replacing nuts myself, seeing how different a lot of my own guitars were from each other.

 

The other thing, is action and tuning. I discovered at one point long ago string height affects both. When you lower the strings at the nut, it makes the whole fretboard play better, as it's a lower starting point. On electric, and especially when NOT playing slide, there is no reason the strings at the nut can't be set low. TOO low is only when one would get buzzing playing open or if the frets aren't level up there, buzzing on frets behind the fretted note (that's rare). Low enough to mimic the difference between frets is often problematic, but usually there is a LOT of distance to be gained there between the way most guitars are "stock".

 

And this leads to tuning: On most guitars, as you fret notes getting closer to the nut, they tend to get progressively sharper, as the tension increases to hold the note down. Lowering the nut slots makes this less, and eventually you can get to a point that may be perfect. But then sometimes, it could be discovered the nut slot is actually cut too far back for the nut itself to be in tune playing an open note. So, the nut slot would have to be widened to move it closer to the bridge. Having said that, it's often a good idea to have a tuner at the ready and check these things along the way, and also to pay attention to WHERE the nut is cut in the first place to evaluate. I like to have the guitar intonated (by using the frets all along the fretbaord as a reference) and compare that to the open string at the nut, and also to get an idea how sharp the notes get closer to the nut, and lower the slots accordingly.

 

Just a few more good reasons why one might replace a nut, besides the advantage of improving the slots as you are doing here.