Official Luthiers Forum!

I recently bought a pre-carved neck from one of our friendly sponsors. I didn’t realize that it didn’t allow space for the nut on the flat/fretboard area. I have no plans, info or experience with placing it on the headstock surface.

Is there a “norm” for how to do this? Nut on the headstock with the head plate bumped up to it? Nut on the headstock plate? Etc

Thanks for any info or pics of your guitar too

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Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

Nut shelf on the peghead is quite common. Gibson does it. What exactly do you have? Pix?

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

No real norm but in my experience butting the headstock plate up to the back side of the nut (g*bson, Martin, Taylor) is more desirable than placing the nut on the head stock plate with nothing behind the nut (Seagul, A&L). The reason why is a properly installed nut is glued in with only one small drop of glue, CA is fine. As such nuts do come loose fairly commonly. When the head stock plate is butted against the back of the nut they seem to come loose much less frequently. Conversely folks who have Seagul guitars and take all the strings off at once to clean the instrument while restringing their nuts often fall off.

I know this sounds painful and it likely is but I'm speaking of the guitar.

Seriously though make a nut of uniform dimensions so the nut "channel" will and can be uniform too. Since the nut sides may be on a curve depending not he head stock shape blend the nut sides to match and remove excess material. Fine files are your friend and nut making can be quite enjoyable if you are a crafty sort who likes crafting things. The nut's sides should be flush with the neck and headstock when you run your fingers along the sides. All scratches and file marker should be removed and you can buff your nuts to a very high gloss. No jokes please, well maybe a few.

g*bson and Martin finish the nut in place which is a nice look and although requires one extra step to service it's still serviceable (which is always desirable in Lutherie........) and can be removed.

BTW nut making is an art. Lots of folks on builder forums tend to concentrate on the woodworking and then find that things such as saddle and nut making, fretting and all things associated with the "user interface" to the instrument or what I refer to as the "set-up" tend to get neglected until the last moment when someone it trying to complete the project. However these set-up issues are as important as anything when building guitars.

FYI some Lutherie schools will teach students that it can take 100 nuts before folks start to really "get-it" and have well developed skills for crafting, fitting nuts, string spacing, filing proper nut slots AND something that many Luthiers never learn.... is to take the nut slots very low for proper intonation and ease of playing.

Corian the countertop material in cut-offs is great to practice nut making with and bone is king, cow bone when it comes to making nuts. Ivory is both illegal and highly over rated as a nut material. I recently banned a customer for life from our business because he persisted in wanting us to break the law and craft his nut out of ivory which is softer than bone and less desirable let alone the 20 - 30,000 elephants that are slaughtered every year by poachers for the stinking ivory trade.

Hope this helps.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Thanks guys, I’ll post some pics too.

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Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

If you are thinking about doing a bound fingerboard and headstock, then putting the nut on the head plane can give a nice look, as in a continuous transition between the two planes. Somebody posted a picture of just such a thing recently but I haven't found it yet.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Here is the picture I was referring to. Dennis K posted it recently. It will also give you a good idea of how to proceed.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust