new to this forum

[knerrl]

I just received my pitbull kit and it looks really great. But I have a question is the plastic nut normally glued in if you order a bone nut?

[dbeltrami]

Welcome knerrl. Yes, you will need to remove the plastic nut. The bone nut will be supplied separately.

[Simon Barden]

Hi and welcome.

Best to start a build diary to ask any questions in as you'll have all the answers in one place, even if it's only a few questions. Start it in this section of the forum: https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...splay.php?f=56

Even with the kit nut, unless you have a set of nut files, you'll need to remove the nut to sand the bottom of it down to lower the nut slots relative to the board to get the action you want. The kit nuts normally come with the slots quite high above the fretboard, which is fine if you want to set it up for slide, but not so good for normal usage. So they almost always need some work.

The nut should come out quite easily if it's tapped gently from the ends. I use a large flat bladed screwdriver and a small hammer, with the screwdriver blade positioned just on the nut. The closer you get to the size of the nut, the more the force is distributed and the less chance there is of a small piece of the nut breaking off, making it harder to hit.

You can do a couple of light taps on the main faces of the nut, but keep them very light, especially if tapping towards the headstock. there's only a thin strip of wood at the end of the fretboard holding the nut in place, and it's very easy to hit the nut too hard and break off some or all of that last bit of the fretboard. So try and just hit the from the ends to move it along its slot.

Once the nut's out, you need to remove as much of the remains of old bits of glue as you can. I normally use a mixture of a sharp scalpel and a square needle file. Try not to enlarge the nut slot size at all. You can make it very slightly deeper if necessary, but not wider. The nut should fit firmly in the slot and not have any play backwards and forwards.

When you adjust the nut height, wait until the end of the build. If you haven't got nut files, fit some strings (use the cheap kit strings in the clear packet for this, not the Ernie Balls) and without gluing the nut in, slide it under the strings, tune the strings and see how high they are off the first fret. Slacken the strings, slide the nut out, sand the bottom a bit and slide the nut back in. Repeat until you think the strings are low enough and aren't likely to buzz on the first couple of frets. then you can smear the base with a dab of wood glue, slide it in, tune the strings up so they clamp the nut under string pressure, make sure the nut is centred and not poking out on one side of the neck or the other, then leave it to dry. I normally leave a nut overnight (sometimes longer) before touching the guitar again.

Note that bone dust isn't a good thing to inhale, so sand it outside if you can, and wear a dust mask.