Paolo's GR 1SF build

[Paolo]

Hi Paolo,

Looking at it, there’s a couple of things I’d verify.

You might be right about ithe nut being mounted wrong. It may just be photo angle, but it seems to me the nut isn’t sitting at 90 degrees to the fretboard. It looks to me like it may be canted forward a tad. Or it could just be the photos.

the rule of thumb I’ve worked to is that you should be about 1/32” (.8ish mm) above the first on your low E and 1/64” on your high e. This is based on what I’ve read in relation to strats and Strat style guitars. I’d imagine that should translate to g style nuts as well? I stand to be corrected on that score by someone that actually knows something 😜

the other thing is how is your intonation?

Thanks FrankenWashie,
From research I've got the same measurements for the 1st fret as you. So my nut is a long way out making the guitar unplayable.
Yes, you're right, the nut is sitting at a bit of an angle. Especially on the high e side.

Looking at pics of the GR 1sf kit from the Pitbull website, my nut and it's position look a bit different, but it's hard to see.

The intonation seems fine.

My first thought is that I will need to file all string slots, if I've got to correct it.
I'm going to wait for any other comments.

[DarkMark]

I don’t have nut files, Sanding the flat base is what I previously did.

[Paolo]

OK, So I'd need to knock out the nut first, and sand the base to adjust it's height?
If I do that, could I damage the base? My nut seems to be glued to part of the border on the side of the neck.

[FrankenWashie]

OK, So I'd need to knock out the nut first, and sand the base to adjust it's height?
If I do that, could I damage the base? My nut seems to be glued to part of the border on the side of the neck.

you could use a probe to scrape that glue away and the give it a tap from the fretboard side with a woodblock across its width.

[DarkMark]

Just for clarification, I’ve sanded the base of the nut, not the actual guitar neck/headstock. I’ve been lucky in the The nut has removed from my two guitars without much effort.

[Paolo]

Thanks Darkmark,
I've seen it done on Youtube and of course it looked pretty straight forward. A couple of taps and off she comes!
But I'll see if I can prep it and gently scrape some glue out first.

[Paolo]

Got it off last night.
I used a scalpel to probe lightly under the nut and where it joins at the sides.
taped up the fretboard next to it, put a small block of wood on the fret side, and tapped towards the headstock.
It came off easily.
You can see it isn't solid. I don't know if other nuts are solid. I would think it would be more stable and have a stronger glue join if it were.
I'm going to clean up the join. Sand down the base in stages for a lower action and try to get a cleaner join.
I'll show progress.

[FrankenWashie]

Got it off last night.
I used a scalpel to probe lightly under the nut and where it joins at the sides.
taped up the fretboard next to it, put a small block of wood on the fret side, and tapped towards the headstock.
It came off easily.
You can see it isn't solid. I don't know if other nuts are solid. I would think it would be more stable and have a stronger glue join if it were.
I'm going to clean up the join. Sand down the base in stages for a lower action and try to get a cleaner join.
I'll show progress.

Good tidy work there Paolo its always a tad clench-worthy tapping off nuts. You never know if they are going to go cleanly or take chunks out of the board. Once you get it feeling right with the set up, maybe use it as a pattern for a bone nut, or just stick it back on.

[BuffaloGhost]

I bought a bone nut with the kit. I couldn’t see anything wrong with mine (it was the same as this one) but changed it anyway as I saw somewhere it was easy and good to do on these kits. The bone one is solid and was cut exactly right so just glued it back in place of the original. Fingers crossed this sorts out your problems with tuning.


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[Paolo]

I bought a bone nut with the kit. I couldn’t see anything wrong with mine (it was the same as this one) but changed it anyway as I saw somewhere it was easy and good to do on these kits. The bone one is solid and was cut exactly right so just glued it back in place of the original. Fingers crossed this sorts out your problems with tuning.


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Hi BuffaloGhost,
thanks for that.
I did look at getting a new nut, but being a lefty, there isn't much choice, and what I found available didn't match the width of the original, so I wasn't confident of getting what I needed.

I have sanded down the nut, and placed ( not glued yet) to test and after 2 stages the sound is very nice and the action feels good. But the nut doesn't quite sit square in position yet, so I'm thinking about what to do, before removing any more material.