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Getting a good nut seat?

Strung up my first last night and it's almost there... That little box is louder than I expected, and that's without soundholes yet. Very cool! It wasn't hard to get a couple good licks out of it either. I can't wait to add a pickup and try it though my amps!

A problem though:

I wanted to do a fender-style headstock with a grooved nut, so I sawed it in and cleaned it up with the edge of a file. I made a nut out of red oak scrap, but I can't get a good seat and the high string has a dead sound because of it. If I really force the edge of the nut down it sounds fine.

The bottom of the nut is dead flat (checked against a straightedge with a backlight), so the problem is the seat. No matter how careful I try to be, I can't get rid of the slight curve that causes the nut to rock in there.

Ideas?

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Permalink Reply by Hey, TURN IT DOWN! on May 26, 2010 at 6:29am

Can you shim the seat? I know, working with the close tolerances and slight distance will be hard, but it might solve your problem. if you try it and it works, just don't loose the shim when you change strings!!

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Permalink Reply by Don Goguen on May 26, 2010 at 6:35am

The way I fit the nut onto a neck is by using fine wet/dry sand paper. First I use the sandpaper on a good flat surface (like my the cast bed of my jointer plane) and using care to keep it flat. slowly sand the bottom flush. I like 600 grit paper for this. Next I, I cut a slice of sandpaper the width of the nut but longer with a razor blade or xActo knife. Wrapping the paper over the outside edges, slowly and carefully sand the bottom of the slot till they are a perfect match. If the issue is the sides of the slot, the way I've dealt with this is to cut the slot slightly under size. Then using a piece of wood just under the width of the slot with a piece of sand paper glued to one face side I sand fit the nut into place so it fits very snug. I use a simple kids glue stick to glue the paper onto various wood bits to sand neck pockets, nuts and just about anything else that I want a specific sized sanding surface.

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Permalink Reply by Mungo Park on May 26, 2010 at 7:34am

It is just a small piece of wood, make a new nut first and see if it fits better, if not, put pencil on the bottom of the seat and wiggle the nut in the slot, look for where the pencil rubes on to the nut, remove this part of the nut, slowly and a little at a time repeating the process once the pencil coats the nut all the way across the bottom you will be done like dinner.
Cheers Ron.

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Permalink Reply by Outhouse Instruments on May 26, 2010 at 1:09pm

If you can tell where the offending area is, trim the bottom of the nut to fit.

Matt

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Permalink Reply by BenBob on May 26, 2010 at 1:46pm

I did try to adjust the nut and I ended up making it worse. Instead of matching the nut to the imperfection of the seat, I'd rather get the seat flat so that when I need a new nut I don't have to fiddle with it again! I'll either try Don's method with a thin piece of sandpaper, or rig a little jig to hold my file level. Thanks for the tips everyone, I'll let you know how it goes.

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Permalink Reply by Crow on May 26, 2010 at 3:28pm

here's the best nut seat i've ever seen.

http://www.geekologie.com/2008/11/10/comfy-chair.jpg

what, what was the question??

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Permalink Reply by Jon Pruett on May 26, 2010 at 4:36pm

Before you cut sound holes, see if you can fine a way to slightly open the box and see how the sound is different. On my last build I was very happy with the strong volume, rich tone, and long sustain - until I opened the lid (which is on the back) just a little bit and it all flattened out - turned very shallow, tinny, and dropped off quick. Now I'm very glad I put the strings on it and tested before I cut the sound hole.

From reading other discussion groups, some people do say a sound hole improves the tone - and I have sound holes on two others that I've made and I'm happy with them. But I would recommend testing before you drill if you can.