every pre-cut nut that I used before, even though they say for Fender etc, needed substantial cutting and fitting. Now I just buy blanks, use a stew mac spacing ruler and my nut files and go at it. It is much better for my OCD
In my experience a good nut is fitted. Therefore one should really expect to work with what is a quality replacement. There are factors that should be considered and a "drop-in" nut is asking for additional complications - or "making due" with whatever is available. A nut should be treated as a fairly custom situation in fitting, etc. YMMV
I bought a new nut from Tusq. Got a few files from a local hardware store (cost much less than from a luthier store and did the exact same job). Got gauge blades and lots of patiences. Took one slot at a time, filing and measuring over and over again until I was happy following Carruthers' advices.
Pretty happy that my first attempt at doing this was successful. A bit less scary than I thought before I started.
