Broken Nut on ABG

[johnm0187]

I broke the E string side of the nut on my Dean ABG so the E string slips out of position thus making it out of tune. Is there a quick and easy way to fix this or am I going to have to get a new nut?
Thanks for any help.

John

 

[JLS]

I broke the E string side of the nut on my Dean ABG so the E string slips out of position thus making it out of tune. Is there a quick and easy way to fix this or am I going to have to get a new nut?
Thanks for any help.

John

You can TRY supergluing the broken-off piece, if you have it.

 

[johnm0187]

Don't have the broken off piece. This happened a while ago and I have just been procrastinating to fix it. I thought about making a plastic piece out of something I have lying around and then gluing it. Any other ideas?

 

[Pilgrim]

I've never tried making a lost portion of a nut, but I've used the baking soda and superglue trick to fill a slot cut too deep. It dries really hard!

You might try using masking tape to build a form on the lost portion of the nut, drop baking soda into it and drip a couple of drops of super glue in. If you make it slightly oversize it's OK - you could file it down.

I don't know if it will adhere to the existing nut, but you don't have a lot to lose.

Stew-Mac sells nut material, and there's searchable info online about how to replace them.

 

[Benjamin Strange]

The best thing to do is have a new bone nut carved and installed. Bone sounds better than plastic, and looks nice too.

There are a few pre-carved plastic nut blanks available out there, but I wouldn't suggest using them unless you don't want your bass to be right.

 

[ByF]

I think for all the carving and glueing you'd do to repair it, you may as well put in a new one.

StewMac sells pre-made nuts in common styles, so you'd just have to sand it a bit to make it fit just right, and file the nut slots to the final height. If they don't have one that fits, you would buy a blank and carve it out.

Making a nut from a blank is not technically difficult (you just file and sand on it until it's just like the old one), but it is a bit tedious. Bone is extremely hard stuff. Power tools make the job go faster. Tusq (a man-made material) is a little easier to work with, and gives a very good result. And Tusq doesn't smell bad while you're filing on it--when you file bone, it smells like when the dentist is drilling your tooth!

Ed