New Gibson Les Paul Nut Problem

[wareyha]

Hi, i'm the proud owner of a 2008 Gibson Les paul Standart but i'm having a very rare problem with her. I'm having trouble in tuning G,B,e strings because the upper nut is holdinh the strings extremely tightly. I can barely tune them but when i make a bend it instantly goes out of tune and this is not related to the machine heads. to sum up the trails of the upper nut are so narrow and dont let the string move up&down.

What should i do? In my town there no luthier that i would let him to work on my guitar so is it possible for me to solve the problem. I also mailed to Gibson Support USA and they didnt help much.

Thanks a lot

Vedat.

[Tim Plains]

A rare problem? They practically all do that!!

You can have the nut filed or replaced with a better one. The quick & easy fix is to just lube the groves in the nut. I use powdered graphite. Others use a product called Big Bendz Nut Sauce or just pencil shavings.

 

You can also take an old string and sort of use it as a saw within the grove to smooth it out. Did that make sense?

[Cryoman]

Try polishing out of each string slot with a small square (2" x 2"-ish) of 800 to 1200 grit sand paper folded in half (grit side out, of course.) The sheet folded in half will give you about a .010" thick polishing "file" that can gently open up the slots the tiniest bit. The super fine grit means you won't ruin anything. Go slow and then feather out / fan out the back side of the string slots (toward the tuners) a bit so the strings don't catch the rear corner of the nut as they angle off toward the tuners.

 

I've found that lubricants, graphite, etc are always a temporary fix and that a little attention to the nut itself is usally warranted.

 

Cheers, Cryoman

 

PS. You can e-mail me for more details on how to do this safely. cryoman@comcast.net. I'll even mail you some fine grit sandpaper as it's sometimes hard to find in small town hardware stores....

[Dinosauria]

Yeah it was the fanned out part at the back of the slots that was the problem with mine. Whoever cut it was completely incompetent (and maybe legally blind).

[Riffster]

Factory nuts cannot be cut properly IMO.

 

The manufacturer does not know whether your are going to use 0.008 or 0.013 strings.

 

Yes, most of us use 0.10 but if they cut the nut for 0.010's then you may have a problem using 0.009's or 0.008's.

 

IMO the nut is part of the initial setup to set your guitar action to your taste.

[Cryoman]

Agreed. And Gibson and others are using the PLEK machine to cut the nut slots on any guitars that don't have bone nuts. (Most do not). It's a one-size-fits-all slot for each string. I've replaced every nut on every guitar I've ever owned with a bone nut cut to my liking, string guage and playing style. Cheap and easy - about $5 and a couple of beers. For those interested, see my notes on this topic at the Heritage site (www.heritageownersclub.com) for a quick tutorial on how to replace your cruddy plastic original nut. Cheers, Cryoman

 

Cryoman

[ledzep59]

I have heard many complaints about Gibson nuts. I have had problems in the past, and now am having problems again, so I will just get a custom bone nut cut and installed this winter probably. At first, I did use graphite like AreNine said, but this just seems to be a temporary solution to a problem that will surface again. Getting a new nut installed professionally is not too expensive ($60-$120), so if you have the extra cash it is a good idea. I have also heard that a bone nut improves the tone of the guitar as well.

[sok66]

Very common issue with new Gibsons. Nut work on my '06 '59 LP VOS and '09 '59 ES335 was very poor, both had to be replaced. The nut material they use is plastic and can easily be improved upon. I'm trying Tusq nuts these days and find it to be far superior to OEM Gibson.