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Nut scratch


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Say I wanted to make my own bass nut from scratch but had no existing nut to base it's measurements on. How would I go about making a blank?

What I am really worried about is going to all the time and trouble of carving one out of steel and then going a tiny bit too far with the slots and buggering it up. Is there a measurement based on the height of the first fret that I should use and not go lower than?

I have been thinking about doing this for ages but never got around to it, however I have discovered that the nut slot on the g string is ever so slightly too low, requiring the action to be higher than it otherwise could be. And I like my action really low. There is already rather more relief in the neck than I would like, so I didn't want to have to increase that. What I really could do with is showing it to someone that can look at it with new eyes because I am getting too frustrated with it. Such a simple thing and I have been doing it for years, but just not getting it right with this bass, possibly because this bass means more to me than the others.

If I manage to do this successfully, I want to carve a nut from bone for my five string. I should probably start with that one, I've got everything set fine on that bass, it would just be a case of making a perfect replica. I only want to replace it because bone would suit the binding better than the current black one. See, I am actually really vain, but I am too fat and ugly to get away with it myself, so I transfer it onto my basses.

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I don't want to replace it with a black one, I want to replace it with a steel one, to match the frets. It was a mod I had always intended on but didn't get around to because it didn't need it.

I did some work on that bass recently, replacing bridge parts, I have a feeling that restringing it took some extra material out of the nut slot. A tiny amount, but enough.

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You'll be better off with aluminum rather than steel as you will be able to work it much easier and its plenty hard enough. Copying a nut shouldn't make it much easier other than the spacing of the strings, you'll need to buy or make a nut spacing rule for this if you don't have one to copy. The depth of the nut slots do not need to be copied and you'd be better off starting from scratch and filing them until you have the appropriate amount of relief (extra height), this varies from player to player but it's just a fraction more than the first fret (which can be measured with feeler gauges). File the slots with the strings on and gradually bring the depth of the slots down.

Edited by Manton Customs
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