In my strat build, I got to the point of installing the nut in the neck. It’s a pre-cut Tusq XL nut. I filed it to the right size and the heights of the strings above the first fret are fine. I then filed the edges as they are intentionally made too long, and then I polished off all the edges so they are really smooth.
I stringed it up and did the rest of the setup and it’s fine. As this is my first ever guitar build, I didn’t glue it in place in case it wasn’t good and in case I had to do more work on it - but I think thats not the case. It fits snugly in the slot and doesn’t move. So my question is whether it really needs to be glued in? On all the videos I have seen, they always glue the nut. But since mine sits snugly in the slot with no movement and is then held in place by the strings, I don’t see how it can move.
I don’t really want to remove the strings again so soon to glue it. I just want to play it !!!
I also have one other thought on the subject, probably more appropriate for this thread and also since my S-style build needed nut work yesterday.
I spent some time with precision rifle accuracy. One of the practices there was to give a precise bed for the receiver to sit on as a consistent foundation for the whiplash motion the rifle undergoes during firing. This process is called ‘glass bedding’ where a fiberglass surface is finely created for the most intimate contact surface.
I feel the nut may benefit from a solid surface. I would expect this to translate into consistent and strong vibrational anchor which should mean pretty sounding clean ring and long duration. I don’t have any evidence yet, but my somewhat horrible nut replacement will give me some idea in the next few weeks once I assemble the stuff into a guitar.
Well just make sure that if you use some unusual material to make a bed for the nut to sit in, that you will be able to get the nut out again if you ever need to replace it.
In my case, I was really careful about the filing and shaping of the nut so that it fitted nicely in the slot. Even though it’s not glued in, it’s actually not that easy to take out again by hand as it’s quite firmly held in the slot. So I’m guessing that in the case of my strat build that the contact between the rosewood of the fingerboard slot and the nut material is quite good. Then on top of that, there’s the pressure of the strings pushing down on the nut keeping it pressed against the fingerboard.
I did the filing so carefully that it took me ages to shape it just right - filing off little bits and then trying to insert it again and get a good fit - checking and re-checking. Took me a couple of hours to do it. It would probably have taken a luthier about 10 minutes
But the strat plays really nice and sustain is good. So I’m happy.
I spent about 20 min on mine and over-sanded by a little getting it to sit in the slot. I have 9 more if I really don’t like how it plays. Next time I will check more often and get in there tighter. There is a slight high spot in the slot itself that I do not have enough height on the nut to work with, so I was just hoping a tad more glue will make the bed I need. The glue can be removed if I need to really clean things up.
I replaced my nut in 2 of my acoustics and I didn’t glue the nuts into either of them. At first it was because my confidence in the job was not there and was insure if I would need to do any extra. But then after a while, I didn’t want to undo it. And months later on the first string change it did not fall out on its own and I simply forgot. Now when I do rememeber I don’t worry about it. I will fix it if its shows issues otherwise I have a multitude of other gauitar projects that can use focus.
