Change nut on Les Paul

[nahfuten]

Has anyone changed a nut on a Les Paul? I have done most kinds of repairs/mods but have never done anything that requires removing/replacing things that are epoxied directly to the body or neck.

I know you guys are pretty adventurous, but should I leave this up to a professional?

 

[nahfuten]

Re: Change nut on Les Paul

Also, a followup question, has anyone used a Graph-Tech nut? how are they? I am thinking of throwing one on my strat and LP

 

[grams]

Re: Change nut on Les Paul

while restringing my 5 day old epi LP the original nut broke I order the
GraphTech TremNut and installed it without much problems. I used a razorblade to seperate it from the fretboard, and also cut it a bit on the bottom. then I pushed the nut away from the fretboard and with a bit of force it came undone.

With the TremNut I have no tuning problems whatsoever - with the original one it went out of tune after 30mins of palying.

 

[nahfuten]

Re: Change nut on Les Paul

what is kind of glue is used to set the new nut?

 

[krankguitarist]

Re: Change nut on Les Paul

Ya cant go wrong with wood glue. I've heard of some people using school glue too. A nut isn't really somthing that needs to hold on to the guitar for dear life, string tension alone can keep it in place (but it is a good idea to glue it down :wink: )

I'm a big fan of the graphtech nuts, I put em on all my guitars that I've had tuning problems with and most of the time it's solved 80-90% of the problem.

The pre-cut nuts can save ya a bit of time and money, though in some cases you might have to sand down the bottom or shim it up depending on fret height. no biggie.

 

[casblah]

Re: Change nut on Les Paul

I've had good results with TUSQ nuts on my LP's. They're made by the Graph-tech people.

 

[MattPete]

Re: Change nut on Les Paul

Ya cant go wrong with wood glue. I've heard of some people using school glue too. A nut isn't really somthing that needs to hold on to the guitar for dear life, string tension alone can keep it in place (but it is a good idea to glue it down :wink: )

I can vouch for that. I was restringing a guitar last night, and the nut came off. I was too lazy to glue it back on, so I just restrung it, using the string tension to hold the nut in place. There is so much string tension that the nut hasn't budged one micron.

For the Graphtech nut, you might have to sand the bottom to get it the right height, but that's it.

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Change nut on Les Paul

I've noticed that my bone nut guitars sound a little bit better than plastic nut guitars.
I like Graphite too, but they just don't look right to me on classic guitars. The Tusq nut sounds like a good one too.