Nut's too tall?

  • Thread starter Thread starter cephus
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cephus

cephus

Slow Children Playing
I suspect that the reason why the action was always too high on my guitar is that the nut slots aren't deep enough. How do you determine if the slot depth is proper. Like fret it at the last fret and see how far it clears the first fret by?
 
The nut slot doesn't need to be any higher than the first fret. You can make a simple tool to check it. You need something to mark the fret hight on the nut. Take a pencil and using a plane held upside down in a vice take enough of the pencil away so that you have a flat side to the pencil that covers the first two or three frets with a sharp point to the lead. Easy to do hard to visualise!? I'll post a pic if its not that clear. Remove the strings and place the flat on the frets and mark a line on the inside face of the nut. This will give you a start point for cutting the string slots. The slots can even go a little lower than this line depending on gauge and action. Too high and intonation suffers too low and they buzz. Getting them just right is one part of a good setup and takes a bit of practice.
 
I have just the opposite problem... Mine hang too damn low! :D
 
I got a straight edge out and an plainly see that this nut is what made this thing a shitty guitar 18 years ago, but I'm gonna fix it by the weekend. Thanks again and pickingrin, you should be thankful your nuts are hanging. It's been so cold here my sack looks like half a walnut shell.
 
The easy way to check is to fret the string on just to the OTHER side of the second fret (i.e., the wrong side), and check the gap between the first fret and the string. There should be just 2-3 thousandths of an inch (I can eyeball it, but if you want to measure, feel free). Basically, you are turning that bit of the string into a straight edge.

In theory, the bottom of the nut slot should be at the exact height of the frets, but in practice it's darn near impossible to actually do that, and too low will lead to open string buzzing. We typically leave it just a few thousandths high.

Oh, and I always find that pencil method just doesn't work for me. I know lots of guys who do it, but the pencil wears to fast for me to get a really good read on things, and cutting to that line is always too high.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
I think there are a couple other things to consider before lowering your slots.
Especially if you neck is not straight as an arrow. Depending on the amount of bow in your neck and the bridge height you could introduce some string buzz reall quick. In other words if you lower the slots and ever need to take out some bow your strings will now be to low and you'll have to ajust the bridge height to compensate for it. This will only give it higher action up the neck.

If the neck has a little excess bow I would try to take it out before trying the other suggestions however if it straight then do it a couple strokes per string.
It easier to take material out that put it back. Bone dust and superglue are not a long term solution.

If you have a strat you might want to check out the graphite nut they are cut superlow for $8 you can same some time and you will always have the old nut.

I've made bone nuts for most of my guitars and would advise a good set of files. Then you have to make sure they are straight have the proper angle while being as smooth as a babies butt. I usually take a guitar the next string size down and wrap 1000 grit sandpaper around it and smooth then out.

Nut cutting can be painful. :eek:

Your gonna also want the take the excess mater off the top of the nut when your finished with the slots. There are several good articles on this I think Frank Ford has it all documented check him out at frets.com.
 
I think this has already been said, but do check the neck before you do anything..

I had an issue with an old guitar and couldnt get the thing set up just as I wanted it. The neck had twisted - not majorly, but enough to affect the playability. I had it planed down and refretted and it is as good as new.
 
Careful guys were talking about two different things here.Yes its good advice to check the neck relief, but you can still check the nut slot depth without worrying about the relief too much and you need to get it nearly there first. What Cephus was asking was how to check the slot depths are in the right ball park. Both Lights method and mine will do that regardless of neck relief because you need to reference it to the height of the first couple of frets.

Only then can you go on to set the neck relief and bridge height correctly. Your nut is in effect a zero fret. All three things need to be adjusted to get the action and intonation just right. My process when building or setting up is to get neck relief nearly there then spend a good deal of time on the nut and saddle and only then return to the neck relief for final adjustment. You will find it hard to get the intonation right if the nut height and bridge saddles are wrong. Still yes you need to check the neck relief as part of the job but your neck relief will never be right until you have the nut cut correctly and to some degree the saddle adjusted for intonation.

In Short, get the nut slots cut just above or on the line of the fret first then do the adjustment to the neck relief and saddles. The final adjustments to get a really good setup is getting all three right.
 
I can sort of imagine what a tenth of a high E string would be like. The gap on this is more like a g string or better.

The neck defintely needs to be addressed too. I just hope that out of all my guitars, I can maybe finger out how to get that action down on this one. All my guitars are set up stiff so I can play the ronka ronka all night. I want one set up girlie.

TO get the action down without too much buzzing, I want to take it and get it set up. I'd just like to address a few other issues first. This guy is very good, very slow and very expensive. I'd really like to keep it down to a set-up this time. If I can learn something and get a little more bench time messing with this thing, I am more than happy - independent of results.
 
My faux strat had a nut that was improperly cut. Had a guy fix that and then I could do a good setup on the rest of it. I guess it's not something we think of often because it's not typically needing adjustment.

Is that on your Floyd guitar? Is the lock behind a regular nut or is the locking part the nut?
 
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