I'm replacing the old busted nut on my friend's MIJ '96 Strat. It chipped/cracked into two pieces.
I have a new Graphtech Tusq nut ready to go - I've used/installed one of these before on an aftermarket neck, and the nut slot was almost perfect for the Tusq. I had to lower the slots only a touch when I installed it then.
This strat is a bit different. The nut slot is routed a bit deeper than the other neck I installed on. With the new Tusq seated in the slot, the nut slots (completely untouched by me) are just a few hairs above the top of the nut slot, which looks to me, much too low for any set of strings. I decided that I have a few options available to me:
1) Use maple shims to raise the level of the nut to an acceptable level, and then file down the nuts slots to final shape. I have been doing some research and it seems like a lot of people and luthiers even, use pieces of paper, bits of credit card, sticky name tags, and even cardboard as nut shim material. Sounds like a whole bunch of BS to me. I would rather just use a little piece (or a couple pieces) of maple veneer clamped down with a sparse amount of glue to keep everything together
2) get an unshaped flat-bottom nut, cut it to size, radius it, shape string slots, file, etc. - saves the work of shimming, but adds a bunch more work too.
3) Get a new Tusq nut and try the whole thing again.
I think at this point, #1 makes the most sense to me. #2, I don't have all the tools I need to do that, and #3 I think has just as much chance of epic failure as giving up and not working on this guitar at all.
Thoughts? suggestions?
I have a new Graphtech Tusq nut ready to go - I've used/installed one of these before on an aftermarket neck, and the nut slot was almost perfect for the Tusq. I had to lower the slots only a touch when I installed it then.
This strat is a bit different. The nut slot is routed a bit deeper than the other neck I installed on. With the new Tusq seated in the slot, the nut slots (completely untouched by me) are just a few hairs above the top of the nut slot, which looks to me, much too low for any set of strings. I decided that I have a few options available to me:
1) Use maple shims to raise the level of the nut to an acceptable level, and then file down the nuts slots to final shape. I have been doing some research and it seems like a lot of people and luthiers even, use pieces of paper, bits of credit card, sticky name tags, and even cardboard as nut shim material. Sounds like a whole bunch of BS to me. I would rather just use a little piece (or a couple pieces) of maple veneer clamped down with a sparse amount of glue to keep everything together
2) get an unshaped flat-bottom nut, cut it to size, radius it, shape string slots, file, etc. - saves the work of shimming, but adds a bunch more work too.
3) Get a new Tusq nut and try the whole thing again.
I think at this point, #1 makes the most sense to me. #2, I don't have all the tools I need to do that, and #3 I think has just as much chance of epic failure as giving up and not working on this guitar at all.
Thoughts? suggestions?
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