Nuts for nuts

alex1fly

alex1fly

Well-known member
I'm nuts for nuts... And these nuts are driving me nuts!

Ok, enough Dad joking. I'm working to get this PRS SE going. The high E and B strong slots have been gouged too deep so the strings buzz on the 1st fret, and the other slots are too narrow for my .10 set. The SE nuts are set up for .09s, so is to be expected. Tuning gets messed up with tremolo use, and post it notes are being used for the high E and B slots to elevate the strings.

I could enlarge the existing slots, and fill in the E & B slots, but I'm kind of a hack at repairs. Are nut files worth the $100? Are they necessary?

I have some roller nuts laying around, but they would set the location of the nut edge (the "zero fret" so to speak) back towards the headstock by a mm or two. Is this a big deal for intonation, tuning, etc?

I did order up a PRS core nut at the advice of the PRS forum, and it seems to fit fine but several strings sound choked (slot too thin?) and the A string has a great resonance going on behind the nut when an open A is played. The resonance doesn't go away when I push on the string behind the nut.

Any suggestions on how to keep myself from going nuts working on this nut? Are my assumptions about slots and sizing accurate, or have I completely deluded myself with internet advice?

Thanks, Alex
 
I've had good luck doing my own nut work, which has consisted of two things:

- raising a nut slot that was filed really low by an idiot who called himself a luthier
- widening a nut slot to go up a string gauge (.009s to .011s)

For the first, all I did was mix up a little epoxy and dab it into the slot. Went slow and did three dabs to get it high enough. Played beautifully after that.

For the second I just took the bigger wound strings and rubbed them back and forth over the nut slots for a few seconds. For the plain ones I took some very grotty old rusty strings and rubbed them back and forth in the nut slots. Afterwards there was no binding and the new string set went on perfectly.

My approach has always to be try the cheapest way to do stuff, and then if it fails buy the right tools. :P
 
The nut is such a vital piece to the guitar puzzle. Get it right and you are golden. Get it wrong and it is nothing but problems at every turn. The replacement nut (if it is the right one) should help but none of the replacement nuts are drop ins not requiring some type fo work. The right tools make a huge difference but a tool is only as good as the hand that it is in. Which nut did you purchase? The GraphTech 6643 and 6143 are good selections. Depending on how much "luthier" type work you plan on doing it may just be easier to take the guitar to a proper tech and have them dial it in right. If you do indeed like doing this kind of work and plan on doing more, the proper tools for the job are a wise investment. If you like, I can point you in the right direction for some specific tools that have been good for me through the years. Good luck!
 
GuitarStv said:
I've had good luck doing my own nut work, which has consisted of two things:

- raising a nut slot that was filed really low by an idiot who called himself a luthier
- widening a nut slot to go up a string gauge (.009s to .011s)

For the first, all I did was mix up a little epoxy and dab it into the slot. Went slow and did three dabs to get it high enough. Played beautifully after that.

For the second I just took the bigger wound strings and rubbed them back and forth over the nut slots for a few seconds. For the plain ones I took some very grotty old rusty strings and rubbed them back and forth in the nut slots. Afterwards there was no binding and the new string set went on perfectly.

My approach has always to be try the cheapest way to do stuff, and then if it fails buy the right tools. :P
Click to expand...

This is kind of my approach too. It's fun to mess with things and get great results without spending much money. But at some point you get tired of hacking at things and just want things to work well :)
 
Bogner said:
The nut is such a vital piece to the guitar puzzle. Get it right and you are golden. Get it wrong and it is nothing but problems at every turn. The replacement nut (if it is the right one) should help but none of the replacement nuts are drop ins not requiring some type fo work. The right tools make a huge difference but a tool is only as good as the hand that it is in. Which nut did you purchase? The GraphTech 6643 and 6143 are good selections. Depending on how much "luthier" type work you plan on doing it may just be easier to take the guitar to a proper tech and have them dial it in right. If you do indeed like doing this kind of work and plan on doing more, the proper tools for the job are a wise investment. If you like, I can point you in the right direction for some specific tools that have been good for me through the years. Good luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks! Yes, the nut is so important. I've enlarged slots before, but haven't filled one in. Nervous about doing this work myself but I guess I can't make it much worse. The nut I bought was from PRS' part store, and is the nut they use on their American made guitars. Seems to fit okay. Different material than the SE nuts and slightly different string spacing. I had to file some height off to get it to match the existing nut. They also sell SE nuts which in theory would be the exact same nut as what's on there.

How do you know when it's "right"? Is it when you have good intonation and the strings stop binding?
 
I don't think nut files (which are expensive, for good ones) are a great investment unless you are doing many guitars. But if you own many guitars, and love that kind of work, a great tool is worth it. To me, it is worth paying someone I trust. I wouldn't work on enough nuts to justify a set of files.
 
alex1fly said:
Thanks! Yes, the nut is so important. I've enlarged slots before, but haven't filled one in. Nervous about doing this work myself but I guess I can't make it much worse. The nut I bought was from PRS' part store, and is the nut they use on their American made guitars. Seems to fit okay. Different material than the SE nuts and slightly different string spacing. I had to file some height off to get it to match the existing nut. They also sell SE nuts which in theory would be the exact same nut as what's on there.

How do you know when it's "right"? Is it when you have good intonation and the strings stop binding?
Click to expand...

The stock American PRS nut is the 6643. The 6143 has a slightly different string spacing. Those two nuts (Graph Tech) are what you want to use on a PRS. Trying to add material to a nut can be a process and can work in a pinch. After spending the time I have over the years and working with different materials I would just purchase another nut and work from that position. Its 10 to 12 bucks and worth the sanity IMO. You ask, "How do you know when it is right"? That is where the proper tools come in so you can measure and know. You can feel your way through and get close but when you account for all the variables and what they do being kind of close can be close enough to work or can be a mile away from working depending on where the errors or discrepancies are. Again, this is where the tools come into play. You have nut height, slot depth, slot width, string break angle, slot angle for string pull to tuners so you minimize or eliminate binding, etc. You can feel your way through all this but it is easier to measure and make sure you are where you want to be. Back to your question of "How do you know when it's right"? It's right when it feels, sounds, responds right and you as the player are happy with the result. I hope what I shared helps and doesn't confuse. :)
 
Sometimes it isn't a question of slot depth when dealing with notes which aren't intonating correctly but rather scale length and compensation. There are compensated nuts.
 
Bogner said:
The stock American PRS nut is the 6643. The 6143 has a slightly different string spacing. Those two nuts (Graph Tech) are what you want to use on a PRS. Trying to add material to a nut can be a process and can work in a pinch. After spending the time I have over the years and working with different materials I would just purchase another nut and work from that position. Its 10 to 12 bucks and worth the sanity IMO. You ask, "How do you know when it is right"? That is where the proper tools come in so you can measure and know. You can feel your way through and get close but when you account for all the variables and what they do being kind of close can be close enough to work or can be a mile away from working depending on where the errors or discrepancies are. Again, this is where the tools come into play. You have nut height, slot depth, slot width, string break angle, slot angle for string pull to tuners so you minimize or eliminate binding, etc. You can feel your way through all this but it is easier to measure and make sure you are where you want to be. Back to your question of "How do you know when it's right"? It's right when it feels, sounds, responds right and you as the player are happy with the result. I hope what I shared helps and doesn't confuse. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks all. I always get stuck between "this is fun to learn!" and "I want to play my d@mn guitar already" with this stuff.

Seems like you could purchase the exact replacement nut and still have to do work to get it right. And personal preference comes in to play on how much you want to spend on tools, how confident you want to be in your setup, and how much margin of error you're comfortable with on intonation, tuning, etc.
 
Welder's tip cleaning files work for me.
Paid $5 for a set at Harbor Freight. Perfectly adequate for home DIY.
If I were cutting nuts from scratch regularly I'd probably want something better.
But for the amount of work I do the cheap welder's files are fine.
 
So I pulled the nut off and this is a close up of the two problem slots. Anyone mind lending their eyes on it? The two slots on the left are causing me problems. Looks like they're gouged out to me, but I'm not very experienced with this stuff. The seller claims he bought the guitar new and barely played it, and had a very "how dare you" attitude when I asked him about it.2.jpg
 
The good news is that even if you mess up this nut a new one installed at a guitar shop isn’t all that expensive.
So if I were you I’d give this one a go and if it’s still not right take it to your local guy.
 
Just looks like they are too deep. Epoxy (or super glue) and a Sharpie for color, and you will be back in business.
 
I went down this road a couple (few) years back when I went on a crazy guitar building phase. I had moved away from locking tremolos and was obsessed with learning how to maximize tuning stability with non-locking trems. I played with the welding tip cleaners with limited success and finally broke down and bought a set of nice nut files from Stew Mac. Even with high quality files, it is possible - easy - to ruin a nut blank. That one stroke too many and the string is riding on the first fret, or too steep a ramp off the back of the nut and you get vibration or ‘pinging’ between the nut and tuning post when playing the open string. But I really had more fun than frustration teaching myself how to do it right. (Nut blanks aren’t horribly expensive.) I totally agree that if you do not plan on doing quite a bit of this, it really doesn’t pay to buy a full set of files. But my nearest trusted repairman is about 40 miles away and backlogged by about 14 days. So impatience got the better of me. Similar story with my soldering skills. Building guitars from used necks and bodies on Reverb and eBay has been a really enjoyable hobby. Now I need to start letting some of my earlier builds go to slap a few more together!!!
 
PDC said:
I went down this road a couple (few) years back when I went on a crazy guitar building phase. I had moved away from locking tremolos and was obsessed with learning how to maximize tuning stability with non-locking trems. I played with the welding tip cleaners with limited success and finally broke down and bought a set of nice nut files from Stew Mac. Even with high quality files, it is possible - easy - to ruin a nut blank. That one stroke too many and the string is riding on the first fret, or too steep a ramp off the back of the nut and you get vibration or ‘pinging’ between the nut and tuning post when playing the open string. But I really had more fun than frustration teaching myself how to do it right. (Nut blanks aren’t horribly expensive.) I totally agree that if you do not plan on doing quite a bit of this, it really doesn’t pay to buy a full set of files. But my nearest trusted repairman is about 40 miles away and backlogged by about 14 days. So impatience got the better of me. Similar story with my soldering skills. Building guitars from used necks and bodies on Reverb and eBay has been a really enjoyable hobby. Now I need to start letting some of my earlier builds go to slap a few more together!!!
Click to expand...

Ya know I think a set of feeler gauges laid against the nut , and between the first fret and the nut
may prevent the too deep scenario

As far as angle too sharply down towards the tuner
I am not sure about that

Again the feeler gauges may help there as well

I have thought about getting an inexpensive Chinese set off Amazon

Still debating that
For the practice thing it may be just fine
 
Super glue and baking soda works wonders for filling slots that are too deep.

Sent from my LG-H830 using Tapatalk
 
If you recut your own, no need to spend ANY money on nut blanks.

Corian (= synthetic countertop samples from Home Depot etc.) is a popular nut material. And free samples are free and will make more nuts than you'll ever do in a lifetime

So feel free to learn, experiment, and screw up however many
 
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