fretless nut height question

[warlord shank]

So I picked up a 2006 or so MIM Fender Jazz fretless at a local guitar store for a song- played well, sounded good, looked goofey (who paints a fretless electric sparkle blue?) but that's easily remidied. On the whole, I'm pretty happy with it. BUT. This morning while changing the strings I noticed that the nut barely even existed. The strings literally sit on the fretboard when open- I can see the grooves they've made. So: is this a bad thing? The bass still sounds fine, doesn't buzz, but I'm pretty sure the nut is there for a reason...

[Jools4001]

Not a problem on a fretless, the nut can be taken down to the board. All it really needs to do is act as a string seperator

[fretlessman71]

You're not so bad off. The nut may be a LITTLE low, but it sounds like the builders carved the nut slots where they are supposed to be, and maybe the previous owner got a little carried away.

Fretless nut slots are cut lower than fretted because there aren't frets in the way. My personal preference when having a new nut built for a fretless is to have a business card worth of clearance - no more - between the E string and the fingerboard at the nut.

If you find that your open strings buzz a lot, you might have to have the nut raised a bit (business card stock works well for this; just cut into strips and keep adding them until you like the height) or have a new one built from a blank.

HTH!

[warlord shank]

thanks a bunch! you learn something new every day