My son just bought an exa-7 7 string kit. Today, we test fitted the neck and ran both the low e and high e strings.
One thing I noticed is that the slots on the nut go about half to three quarters of the was across the nut, but it's not cut all of the way through. So the grooves exist on the fretboard side, but they pretty much disappear on the headstock side.
Am I suppose to buy nut files and extend the groove all the way across the nut?
Hi Patrick.
You should not have to buy nut files - they are great though. A good set of nut files is over $100. A set of needle files are a lot cheaper and could work.
I have not had this trouble with any of my builds so far.
Can you post a photo of the nut?
It may be worth mentioning this to Pitbull.
PitBull Builds: FVB-4, LP-1SS, FBM-1, AG-2, TB-4, SSCM-1, TLA-1, TL-1TB, STA-1HT, DSCM-1 Truckster, ST-1, STA-1, MBM-1.
Scratch Builds: Pine Explorer, Axe Bass, Mr Scary, Scratchy Tele's.
The little voices in my head keep telling me "build more guitars"
Here is the image.
As you can hopefully see that groove for the high E string only goes about 50% of the way across the nut. Every guitar we have the nut is usually cut all of the way across.
Last edited by patrickparks1; 13-12-2021 at 07:18 AM.
Right, but shouldn't the shallow little groove go all the way across the top surface of the nut? It fits in the slot in the front, but since there is no groove on the headstock side, it's just sorta siting on top of the last portion of the nut.
Seems like the shallow groove would go all of the way across the nut. But as you can see, none of mine go all the way across and the higher the notes go, the shorter and shorter that groove becomes.
Last edited by patrickparks1; 13-12-2021 at 07:47 AM.
You should probably at least cut the slot the full width of the nut. You may also need to deepen other slots in setup.
The experienced builders are largely in consensus that the best way to cut a slot is with purpose made nut files. I don't dispute this. I have not used them, but I'm guessing they're really great, and much faster than the way I do it.
I use the cheap tip cleaner "files" on a bass nut, but I don't really find the thin ones stiff enough to use on a guitar nut.
So I use to this method:
https://youtu.be/ZQitFeJCHB4
I made mine like the ones in the video, the one difference is that I used a Dremel tool with a cutting wheel to make my notches in the feeler gauges. Much faster!
If I thought I were going to be doing a lot of nuts, I would definitely invest in the files. This approach with the feeler gauges works, but it takes forever. That's not good, but it's not all bad either. I am sure that I would have cut a slot too deep by now with the files. I haven't yet had that problem with feeler gauges, partly because they cut so slow.
Maybe not a ringing endorsement, but this approach has worked for me. Offered here FWIW.
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Last edited by fender3x; 13-12-2021 at 09:38 AM.
@Fender3x,
Thanks for your suggestion. i did exactly what you did, I took a set of feeler gauges that I had, and a notched them with a dremel tool. I then used those, as a makeshift knife and was able to extend the grooves across the entire face of the nut. I'm pretty happy with my results, and if we screwed it up, we will just get a new nut.
My son also has some friends that have built with this kit and they had to do the same thing on there's. the low E would not stay put and kept popping out of the nut since half of it wasn't in a groove.
Last edited by patrickparks1; 13-12-2021 at 11:29 AM.
I'm glad you were able to make the DIY nut files, however I hope you haven't gone too deep with the slots.
IMO you should have waited until nearer the end of the build to cut the slots that much. I agree the factory ones were likely too shallow for playing, but should have been adequate to just hold the E strings in place for the purposes of neck alignment (maybe the treble E could have used a few strokes).
You might still be OK, but I thought I'd mention it so you're aware before you do the final set up and set the nut action.
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
I tried to not make them a whole lot deeper, but rather just extend the groove all of the way across the nut itself. If I screwed it up, will just have replace that nut.
I'd be tempted to replace the nut with a bone or Tusq one anyway. The kit ones are hollow plastic and relatively soft, not the best material for a nut.
I agree with Simon,, and this one is super easy to swap out too
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