Nut question

[Thelowendfunk]

Hi,

I don't know if anyone remembers but I posted about how to custom paint my bass and about a month ago I actually finished my little project so I hope to upload a few pics soon. The bass itself though was a cheap beginners one and the nut is actually bent in its place. I was just wondering if this is a problem and whether it is the reason I can't lower the action to how I like it and whether it needs replacing.

The nut is slightly angled towards the bridge and it looks as thought the slot it fits in had been cut out at an angle too. It's a bit hard to describe but imagine it like this...
|
----headstock-----|__|__|----fretboard--------

Now imagine the underscore is perfectly flat and the middle line is a perfect 90degree angle except in my case, the underscore is angled making the middle line pointing about 15/20 degrees towards the fretboard.

I hope that helps and you understand, any help is appreciated and i hope to post my project up soon!

Thanks in advance!!

 

[Davidmh]

Hi,

The cheaper guitar (and bass) manufacturers sometimes have their own ways of doing things which don't fit in with Fender or other manufacturers. This may be why yours is shaped differently to others you've seen.

Is the nut ok? Maybe it just needs the inlets filed a bit deeper. You can do this yourself quite easily. If you ruin the nut you can get a new one in the UK from Axesrus (google them) for about £3.00 inc postage.

Sand to fit, glue in with Evostick or similar. Away you go!

 

[Thelowendfunk]

Hey,

Thanks for the reply, its a good point and a good idea but it looks like if I filed it, i could probably get about another mm before the string itself is resting on the first fret so I don't think I can.