It's funny how everything you do leads to something else you need to do. Having now cut nuts for three basses and one guitar, I am noticing some problems in my non-build guitars. My '68 Fender Coronado has a little sitar buzz in the A string. I am not sure I'll do anything about that because, while it has a fender style nut, it has binding over the edges. I definitely don't feel competent to address this, and am afraid I could adversely effect the value of the guitar by trying.
Meanwhile other nut problems have been appearing. I have a hand-made flamenco guitar made here in Miami in 1994 by a luthier named José Castellón who seems to have disappeared off the face of the Earth. It's a quirky little guitar, but it has a great bright tone, and stays in tune better than any other classical style I have ever played. That said, I have always thought it might have been an early prototype for Castellón because of some odd features. Like the fact that the back and sides are poplar rather than Spanish cedar, tool marks in various places, etc. I got it from someone who played it hard, so it's not very valuable, although it's one of my favorite guitars.
A few days ago it developed a very significant buzz in the E and A strings. Looking closely, its because part of the nut on the bass side seems to have broken away. It doesn't look too difficult to replace, and a I have nut blanks. What I don't have is a spacing guide. I would just follow the slots in the existing nut, but they are clearly off a bit. Not enough to affect how it plays, but I might as well correct it if I am making a new one. I know Stew Mac sells spacing gauges for a small fortune, but this has got to be something for which there is a PDF file that will do the same thing. Anyone know where to get one?
I will need it on another guitar as well. I have a Fender F-265C MIJ acoustic. Fender says it only sold these for one year in the US--1987. I purchased mine brand new in 1985, so *I* think it should be pretty valuable if for no other reason than the time travel. Unfortunately, these are not particularly rare and not worth much $$$*, although everyone who has ever played mine thinks it sounds and plays great. Nevertheless, the sides of the nut near the low E and now starting on the high E have chipped away. While it sounds fine, I think it's only a matter of time. If I need to replace it, I'd like to increase the string spacing a little. I have fat fingers... I also noticed that I find the string spacing on the Strat I just finished to be much more comfortable. The Strat nut width is 44.4, the acoustic's nut width is 43.3. Is that close enough to try to replicate the Strat spacing on the acoustic if I am cutting a new nut anyway?
*It has a bound body and neck, Gotoh machines, mahogany neck, rosewood sides, back and fingerboard, Florentine cutaway. I defy anyone to find a new guitar that sounds and plays as well, has equivalent quality woods and build quality anywhere near what mine cost new. The fact that you can get one for under $300 on eBay or Reverb is just nuts.
The one that is basically unplayable in current condition is the Flamenco...
Although it looks worse, the Fender acoustic is still playable and sounds fine...
...I am just not sure for how much longer.
Don't much want to do anything to the Coronado. At most the superglue and bone dust trick. I really don't want to take the nut out, however. You can see why...
I'm afraid that the ends breaking off nuts are what often happens when the nut isn't filled down to at least be level with the top of the strings. the two end sections of the nut are relatively thin and the higher they are, the more leverage on the base when the top gets knocked or caught.
I'd hoped that in the first two cases there might be enough of the ends left to simply file down the top of the nut, but there really isn't enough height left to do that. Definitely replace them.
The Fender is tricky. CA and baking soda is probably the best method to use here. I can't see an easy way to remove the nut without risking damaging the end of the fretboard or the binding. Even sawing down the middle of the nut isn't going to do any good, as you can't saw the whole depth because of the binding, so you'll only break the top part of the nut off, making it impossible to remove the bottom part.
You may be able to wiggle it lightly backwards and forwards with pliers, but if it's stuck in well, then I can't see it coming loose unless you use enough force to risk splitting the headstock end of the board.
Using a really thin sharp knife you may be able to fee the binding at the sides back to the 1st fret on one side, leaving enough room to tap the nut from the other side and hopefully shift it slightly so you can then remove it vertically. But you'd have to tap just the top part/end of the nut, which just risks it breaking off and setting things back even more. If you could do it, you'd stick the binding back with acetone and maybe touch up with some poly or a couple of wipes of TruOil or similar.
A hot hair dryer might soften the glue enough to just pull it out upwards with pliers, but there's always the risk of finish or other glued areas becoming unstuck and it depends on what glue they've used.
So try the CA and baking soda trick, and don't forget to mask off the board either side. I normally tape up the front and rear sides of the nut as well, to form a well that the CA can't escape from, so it goes right up to the front face of the nut. Is the Coronado nut plastic or bone?
Yeah, I have pretty much come to the same conclusions. I'll probably attack the Flamenco first, since the others are still playable. The Fender acoustic next... And if at all with the Coronado, using baking soda and CA. If you look very closely in the pic, you can see there is some crazing on the binding near the nut. The binding has finish on it so it may be in that, but if the binding is cracked, I could break off a chunk doing anything more invasive. Not worth the risk on a guitar with some value, particularly since I don't play it much.
I am not sure what the Coronado's nut was made of. It's such an odd duck. It has a fender style nut, a bolt on neck and 6-in-line tuners, but other than that it's not ver "Fender" like. It was designed by Roger Rossmeisel, is a thin hollow-body (not semi-hollow) and has DeArmond pickups, so it's not very Fender-like in some respects. Lots of premium features, but not premium enough for the inlays to be genuine MOP. The nut could be bone or plastic. I am just not sure. I don't know a way to test it without potentially damaging it, particularly if it is plastic.
Difficult to get any firm info on Fender nuts. General feeling is that they used bone up until the CBS takeover, then at some point fairly soon after they switched to plastic. So the later the date of the guitar, the more chance of it being plastic. A gentle file on the top and a sniff should tell you if it’s bone or not. Nitro paint on it though.
Its post CBS, but not much. 1968. I don't know if that's far enough to put it in the plastic era. There's quite a lot about it that I am guessing Leo Fender would not have done...
I have enough of a break in the action to be thinking about replacing the nut on my Fender acoustic. As I was contemplating knocking the old one out I noticed that the bottom of the nut is not perpendicular to the bridge side.
How the heck do I get that shaped properly? Has anyone done one of these? I am assuming I can't just buy one with a properly obtuse angle?
Well, I have given up for now on figuring out how to cut the bottom of the nut angle. I ordered a TUSQ nut that comes with an angled bottom. It is evidently the way Martins made all their nuts until the 1990s, and they still make them that way on higher end models. I just got the nut today. Looks about right, and hoping the angle will fit my MIJ Fender as well as the Martin.
I was thinking that the action on my steel string acoustic is about right...so I'd try to keep it about the same as it is now when making the new nut....
But I just checked them with feeler gauges and they vary by quite a lot...and oddly:
E .019
A .030
D .030
G .022
B .021
E .009
This can't be right. I *think* I like the action relatively low. Does anyone have advice on this. I have seen advice from StewMac to set them between .022 and .020. I have also seen .018...and even lower for the strings at the treble end.
I have also seen something that suggests that there is a way to use a capo to measure with a capo at the 2nd and 3rd frets to determine the height at the 1st... Does anyone really get this trick?
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