First attempt at making a nut for my Strat.

[DrNomis_44]

I just got back home from visiting a mate and helping him out with one of his guitars that needed a replacement toggle switch, anyway, I managed to fix his guitar so that all the pickups were working correctly, while I was out at his place I tried my Strat through his Rock Rig and my Strat sounded really good, so I'm happy with it.


I think that it doesn't matter so much what material the nut is made out of as long as it's hard enough to withstand the amount of downward force exerted by the string on the nut itself, I think what really matters is the way the nut slots are cut, how wide the nut slots are, and the amount of friction between the nut material and the string, you really want some kind of material that's both hard and also offers very little friction, friction is one of the main causes of tuning-instability in a guitar, especially one that has a trem system installed on it, the way the string passes over the nut is important, if it kinks to one side or another then no amount of futzing with the nut-slots is going to cure it, something I've found through experience, a sideways kink is going to create a point of friction that no amount of lubrication is going to cure, so, the string needs to pass over the nut as straight as possible with a downwards break-angle so that the string vibrates cleanly without choking-out, which shortens the sustain, the break-angle ensures enough downwards-force that the string does sustain cleanly.

The nut slots need to be wide enough so that the string doesn't bind in them, but not too wide that the string buzzes against the side of the nut slot, the bottom of the nut slot needs to slope downwards towards the headstock from the front of the nut so that the string rests on the front-most edge closest to the first fret, this ensures that the scale-length starts at the proper zero-point so that the intonation is correct at the 12th fret.

Lastly, there's the string-to-string spacing of the nut-slots, these need to be spaced so that the strings are even and not bunched up.