Official Luthiers Forum!

Somebody linked to a patent on adjustable nuts in a recent thread. I think it sounds like an interesting idea as a quick and functional upgrade for work horse guitars - for nut compensation and quickly setting the proper nut action

Does anybody know if they are available for purchase? And do they perform well?

Thanks

I saw ‘Adjustable Nuts and Where to Find Them’ over the weekend, and was just a bit confused by both the premise of and audience for this effort. I don’t view this new offering as having the appeal to younger luthiers that the ‘Frank Ford and…’ series - which started with ‘Frank Ford and the Nut of Eternity’ and closed with 'Frank Ford and the Final Adjustment’ - had on us nascent crafters . An entire generation of repairmen grew up with the Frank Ford character, so it's difficult for me to see how the ‘Adjustable Nuts…’ franchise can approach - much less equal - that earlier effort.

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

I think Woodie swallowed a film critic.

I'm not sure why you would want an adjustable nut. It's one of those things that get set up once and then should stay the same forever. There's only one correct setting for the nut...the setting you like. If it is adjustable, someone is gonna adjust it so that it's wrong. I'd rather spend the money on a good set up.

I can see some people wanting an adjustable nut. If you play with a low action , there are times that a buzz here or there occurs with humidity change. Raising the nut some would be a plus. Or maybe the player that goes lap steel to conventional.

But that was not the question. I saw the link but can't find it now.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Maybe a shim under the saddle would be a more effective solution ?

Can't find a commercial nut adjustable for compensation, only height.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Nut slots, once cut properly.... should not need periodic adjustment even for the ravages of an extreme case of dryness. Nut slots are something that can be "set and forgotten" with the only thing that may happen in time is that one or more of them wears too low and then they can be raised a number of ways or the nut can be replaced.

More specifically as Murray said action is typically adjusted (once nut slots have been addressed) at the saddle(s).

Most pro Luthiers (who work in the trade and do this every day) set the truss rod, cut the slots and eliminate these two variables and then do the action and intonation adjustments at the saddle(s). This is what I do.

Regarding nut compensation be advised that many of us think it's total and complete bull shirt..... Cut the nut slots properly and there is no need for nut compensation because the strings are not being pulled sharp by fretting. Every day or at least every week someone comes to us complaining that certain chords suck... when done and that they read on the Internet.... that they need Earvona, Buzz Feitin, etc. to solve their problems. We inspect the ax and see that it's never been set-up well with high nut slots remaining and tell them that a simple, well done set-up will solve their problem. A few hours later they are happy as a clam. They also just saved a bunch of money.....

With all of this said, nut compensation is bull, nut slots can be set and forgotten except for excessive wear in time, etc. The notion of an adjustable nut has more advantages for a production/f*ctory environment for what the value add of most small builders likely is. We are not supposed to be the folks who slap them together, next, and call it a day.... Instead we are supposed to be endlessly toiling by candlelight etc.

There is also the idea for some of us purists... that some adjustable hunk of crappy metal on an acoustic guitar might look a bit like the Jaws character in some James Bond movies.... and way out of place.

I also have to add that in my business and in the work that I did all my life for a major corporation before being a Luthier when someone asks for something it's always important to understand why. I'm not talking about push back but the fundamental idea of "defining the problem" properly. It's pretty hard to help anyone if we don't understand whey they want what they think that they want.

Are customers always right? Hell no and again in my experience they are often wrong and part of our value add is to be that "trusted advisor" who will actually "listens" to them and even more important tries to "hear" them and get it right the first time in so much as why they want what they think they want.

A client who asks me about nut compensation and again it happens frequently simply does not understand that their lousy guitar is currently not set up very well.... 99% of the time that's the deal.

Preach it, Brother Hesh!!!!!!!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Here's a G*bson implementation of an adjustable (height) nut that came in Thursday on a brand new Les Paul with those God awful robotuners..... This guitar was purchased and picked up at an area G*itar C*nter and brought to us directly from the store. It had been "set-up" at GC.... but the client knew better and brought it to us before ever taking it home.

By the way it came in for a set-up.....

Anyway in this implementation it's basically a take on a zero fret and/or "zero-glide" arrangement. Although not huge in size...., it does have that going for it, the adjustments are always a compromise. What I mean by that is that there are three points of adjustment (without taking a file to the metal here.... and we all know that there are six (or more...)) strings... With this said you can get pretty close to optimal with this thing but I can get closer with a traditional nut with each slot cut as I want.

The two set screws are for height and the middle screw that was loose and rattling.... when it came in.... we believe is to "warp" the radius to match the radius of the specific neck for the nut slot depth of the center strings.

It does work and for the screw driver twisters.... at G*itar C*nters there is not a lot of damage that they can do to the instruments with this thing. You can't cut too low which is the primary reason why nut slots are rarely cut well at f*ctories and if you do adjust it too low it can be reversed.

This guitar also had robotuners on it but I am trying to clean up my foul language for the holidays.... so we won't talk about the robotuners much.... I will say that G*bson needs to learn and understand that most males that I know HATE having to read instructions.... me included. So we don't......

Dave kept suggesting to me that I read the instructions but I purposely avoided doing that. I have this thing for how intuitive an innovation or technology may be and as such I usually want to see how far I can get in complete ignorance.... Doesn't that sound like a rationalization or a cop-out?

Anyway here's a pic of the thing. Now don't you think that on a finely built acoustic guitar a nice amber piece of unbleached bone brought to a very high polish and with the nut slots expertly cut looks a lot better?

PS: When the client picked-up the ax he was thrilled and on his way back to the US Virgin Islands where he lives. I know differently because I believe that the Marines have been there before.... but I digress. I watched him struggle with the robotuners and then suggested that he read the instruction manual. He stopped playing, looked over his glasses at me with a disgusted look on his face and made it very clear that I was an A-hole for suggesting that he read instructions.... I rest my case....

That metal nut is so ugly that, when it was born, the doctor slapped its mother.

I'm not as experienced a setup person as Hesh, but as a player of about 40 years, I will say I agree with the lack of true NEED for a compensated nut. If cut properly (which means low enough, as well as all the other things we do to nut slots), I have never felt the need for nut compensation. If you push the string out of tune at the first fret, you are either mashing down way too hard on frets that are really tall, or (most likely), the nut slot has not yet been lowered to the optimum depth for that string. And the main reason the slots stay too high is the setup person's fear of going too low. Pretty common problem.

I'm open minded regarding the possibility that some nut compensation work by some folks does some good for the intonation of a specific guitar for a specific playing style, etc. I'm just saying that, as a player, I can cut my nut slots such that I don't suffer from the lack of a nut compensation system. And now that I build guitars, I can say that other players who play my guitars LOVE the feel at the first five frets, where most of the magic happens anyway on an acoustic guitar. And one of the biggest contributions to that satisfaction is that I am not afraid to lower the nut slots down to where they really should be.

I think I said in the other thread about adjustable nuts that it seems like a lot of over engineering when the obvious better solution is to just learn how to properly cut and shape a bone nut.

Ok, that is ugly, very ugly. It is a tall price to pay for slight, or as some say, no benefit.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust