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I don't like them either and they are butt ugly too with a slot head exposed like that. The pins inside as you know seize and I have to tonk them lightly with a metal tool to get the pin to drop. I used to have a PRS Custom 24 Ten Top and it had them and I hated them.

I thought of you Chris this morning as I was tightening the strap buttons on these five guitars

Lots of cool instruments passing across your bench Hesh.
What is wrong with that nut? Well - most things. It is too high, with the strings fully buried in the slots. They only need to be about half that deep, so the nut could be filed down a lot Next, it needs to be rounded off a lot at the back, towards the tuners, and the slots a bit more open on that side. Looks like the action at the nut might be high too.

Hey Mark and you're right the nut is simply too massive, chunky, ugly and nothing eloquent about it. The slots are way longer than they need to be and completely flat too. It looks like a 9 year old made it out of clay. 25% or more of the material still needs to come off.

It's bone and has visible deep scratches in it too, a no no for any professional shop to let something like this out.

Now the slot depth is deep but the 1/2 the string proud thing is not desirable and we know who started it all back in the day too, Dan Earlywine who is our friend and he's been to our shop and in fact started in the same shop as we have with Herb David. We have Dan's Dad's belt sander too. He thought it was correct. back in the day but not anymore and lots of players can pull a 1/2 string proud string right out of the slot if it's not deeper. I can and I've demonstrated that it's pretty easy to do with some common tunes with bends in the first and second position.

So it's something someone believed and it became a goal even though it's not desirable.

Anyway good on ya, butt ugly nut for sure

These things, I’ve found, are also one of the worst culprits for string breakage, due to some gnarly edges in the locking post that should be better finished at the factory. I have talked quite a few customers into removing these and replacing them with either different lockers or conventional tuners, by explaining the raw economics of the situation and how the upgrade will pay for itself in just a few saved sets of Elixirs

Good job Hesh!
Looks like you found your niche. My repair business is completely different format.
The jobs I do are in the 3 to 30 hour range. No one actually you’ve inspired me I’m gonna do a thread on what’s going on in my shop.


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Yeah I don't like anything about them either including the looks of a freaking hardware store on your head plate complete with slot head, black ugly big screws looking at ya. No eloquence here at all. But what I was highlighting was the knobs the G knob is much bigger than the other five. Dave thinks it's a PRS factor f-up.

Great thread Brad I was just there and saw all the big jobs you are doing. Dave does out medium and large jobs I do the in and out stuff and medium jobs. We didn't want the larger stuff preventing us from servicing the set-ups and pup installs the typical one hour or less stuff that are great stalking horses for more extensive things like fret work and other issues.

Glad you're inspired you've been inspiring me for 17 years now, thanks Brad!