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Anyone build without a nut slot? Just put the nut on the headstock veneer? I've seen and worked on guitars like this. It seems to work fine. Wondering what people's thoughts on it are.

I see no functional problem with it, but it looks cheap to me. Headstocks are so small, you might as well have a nice looking piece of wood on there

I've done it several times,
for some reason I don't know.
I used more glue on them,
and they are on lap steels which are sticking up 1/4" above the fretboard.
No problems, yet.

What got me thinking about it is I thought to myself how much simpler it would be to simple install the veneer, flatten it, route the truss rod right through the neck and the veneer, and then just cover it all up with a filler strip, the nut and the truss rod cover. And then I thought, "Well, I don't see that very often and it seems kind of cheap, but it also seems very simple and clean, which I like a lot".

And then I happened on one of Myka's webpages and it looks like this is exactly what he's doing. I did it like this on my first couple of guitars and got away from it, but I'm really liking the clean, minimalistic look. Work wise, I think it's a wash since making the nut will be a little more work (it will want to squirm around before/during final gluing) but it goes along with my design philosophy of throwing everything out that doesn't have a purpose.

John,
If you are set on doing this, it seems to me you might be able to avoid potential problems with the nut wandering during glue up--however slightly--by using a zero-fret on your fingerboard.

Having said that, I think in the long run you'd be better off with a more conventional slot and nut configuration.
You can secure the nut in the slot with the tiniest drop of glue, and, if the need arises in the future, it would be so simple to tap the nut free and replace it. I think it would be much more difficult to do an invisible replacement of a surface-mounted nut. At least, I know for certain that it would be more difficult for me!
Patrick

I like the nut slot. It makes it easier to slot and glue the nut. It also affects how deep the neck ends up in the case. It's easier to bind the neck and headstock, as you can bind the headplate before gluing down.

I don't really see the advantage to gluing the veneer down first, other than one or two fewer steps, with no clear advantage, at least to me.

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We seem to have a very similar design philosophy!

I've been doing without a nut slot since forever. Haven't stumbled upon any drawbacks yet...

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

I have several necks in the pipeline that are designed for nut slots, but after those I think I'm going to give no slot another try. Thanks for the encouragement, Alain.

Havent slotted any of mine . Fret board against one one side and headplate and cover on other . seems to work ok for me

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I've done various variations on the theme, and lately tend to follow the Benedetto method because it lines up the purfling on the headstock binding with any purfling on the fingerboard. Looks sleek and elegant. Involves a small wedge added to extend the head plate surface a little bit. Shot without the binding on yet: