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Do I have to make a new nut or are there other ways???

Also, How low do you typically cut your nut slots? What 1st fret action or
what do you do???

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Andy, you can fill the slot with thick CA let dry and then reslot. No big deal!
I slot all mine with nut files.

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Andy, when I cut the nut slot to low (usually a couple on each guitar), I've just taken a piece of bone and make some fine bone dust, fill the slot with it and hit it with a drop or two of CA. It gets very hard fast and within a minute or so, your recutting the slot.

Here is an article that I've used when setting up. Hope it helps. I'm sure like many things in this craft, there will be many ways and differences in setting up.

Most of the set up of course depends on what the player likes, low action, medium action, string gauge etc...

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is this a repair or a new instrument on commission or for spec sale?

if it is new, make a new nut.

if it is a repair, what does the client want?

i don't like shimming a nut. on a high quality instrument would recommend a new nut, particularly on wound strings, but on plain strings filling tends to hold up ok, if money is an issue.

I did the right thing.
I made a new nut!!!!

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

If the guitar was for myself, I wouldn't spend the time making a new nut. CA glue is very, very hard when cured -- maybe even as hard or harder than bone (I haven't done any scientific tests on that; I wonder if anyone has)?? In any case, in my limited experience so far, it works out just fine to fill the slot with CA and recut it. No loss in sound quality, and my guess is that it will wear about as well as the bone itself -- maybe better, I don't know. I think it was in a GAL publication that I read this tip: put baking soda in the slot, then a tiny drop or two of thin CA. I have done it this way and it works well. I've tried using bone dust and found it doesn't work nearly as well. The CA doesn't soak into the bone dust as well and it ends up looking more yellow (not that you'd really see that in a nut slot). No problem with baking soda. I haven't tried using medium or thick CA as Peter suggests; maybe that's even easier.

If it turns out that CA wears better than bone, it might be a good idea to overcut all the slots, fill them with CA and recut. Seriously.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

In my experience, the dust and CA does not hold up as well as the bone. Some like to use baking soda instead of bone dust, but I have not found this to work any better. If you shim the nut with bone and you glue line is good, the repair will be invisible. Of course you also have to adjust the other nut slots (and perhaps the top of the nut), so it is not necessarily much faster than making a new nut.

Paul Hostetter posted an elegant solution to this in a thread over on Mandolin Cafe a while ago, take a look Building up one too deep string nut groove, Quick solution

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Arnt, thanks for sharing your experience. I'd be interested to hear of others' experience that either corroborates or differs from yours. The two guitars I've used the baking-soda-and-CA fix on have not gotten a whole lot of play since doing it, so I am really only guessing as to the long-term wear of the CA'd slots, just based on my general observations of the hardness of cured CA.

I'm inclined to think that even if I find these slots do wear somewhat quicker, I'd still find it worthwhile to do (on my own guitars, at least), because it's such a quick and easy fix compared to making a new nut. The nut will have to be replaced eventually anyway, but if that can be put off for some years with this method, it would be a time savings. In my life, nothing is more valuable than time!

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/