Nut Chopping The Jooky (Cheap) Way

Proper Nut Slot Files
Though, obviously, I don't have any

Well, bit of a disjointedly odd day, today. The courier finally came to get The JoBo One, though too late to be usefully usefilled, so I never got to drill and solder Raymondo in the end.

I also never managed to finish off The Ronin One, again, although I cut a nice graphite nut which seems to have solved my slightly-buzzy-problem, which is good. I'd actually bought a metal nut as I love the brass one in my Gordo, but to be honest it was too much hassle to adjust it once I realised I needed to take a couple of mm off the bottom before I even looked at the slots, as it were. The graphite was easier to work with and sounds grand so that will do nicely.

Somebody asked how I cut nuts a while back, and to be honest I usually cheat and buy the pre-slotted ones and then adjust-to-fit rather than create-a-new.

Today though I had a blank so I had to do it proper like. Not that I have nut files (they cost far too much) so I use a combination of welder's nozzle cleaners - little files, you can pick a set up from Ebay for under a three squids - and some old strings.

Daft as it sounds it only crossed my mind recently that what I'm trying to do when I cut a nut is make slots to fit strings into. I know, sad isn't it?

So in my best Columbo-mode, I realised that if I rubbed bits of string back and forth, after a while they would wear a slot of the right size. These slots I finally tidy up with the small nozzle file things. Which I could use from the start, but they are a bit flimsy.

The high E is the only one that never seems to work this way, so I just use a Stanley blade to nick it in the right place and then use the file.

I mean, I'd buy the proper files if I was doing lots, but this works for me when I have forgotten to buy something prepared earlier. I should of course have taken fotos as I went along, but obviously forgot.

Incidentally, after I'd worked this out I read the same thing in one of Dan Erlewine's books, and as he is King Kiddy in guitar land repairer circles, I felt good even while I felt slightly bugged I wasn't being original.

In fact I've read the same book before a number of times, so maybe 'thought' should be replaced with 'remembered' further up this page anyway.

So tomorrow, there is a bit of drilling and soldering and then all will be good and rosy like Lee, I'll finish both The Raymond and Ronin Ones and then face the fact that I'm really going to have to brave the router if I'm going to sort out The Fallen One.

La la laaaa