The All important Nut of the Guitar
A common mistake of guitar players and luthiers alike is underestimating the importance and the role of the the guitar nut.
In my experience as a guitar building and guitar repairman I have seen nut setups ranging from the perfect nut all the way to a totally screwed up nut setup. The departure can be amazing.
Additionally materials can play a very substantial role in the tone quality of a guitar, particularly when gravitating from a cheap plastic nut to a bone nut.
There are many articles that you can read on the analysis of the nut from actual construction of the nut to material decisions and the perfect string slot setup.
So you can tell that the nut, that little strip of white plastic or bone plays a notable role in the guitar playing ease and tone. The nut is responsible for these guitar attributes:
String Action or Guitar Playability
The Guitar's Intonation
The Guitar Tone
Ease of Tuning the Guitar
Preservation of the Strings
Now we will examine each of these elements in more detail and find out why this little strip of plastic, bone or ivory is of such importance to the guitar's playing ease and tone production.
String Action:
Although this point may seem rather obvious, there is in reality more to it than it seems on the surface. Making minor adjustments to the depth of the string channels in the nut can make an amazing difference in the guitar's ease of playing.
What happens if you go to low with your nut channel adjustments? Yes that is easy to do and you will ruin the nut and have to start all over. What then would be the optimal string groove depth? That subject will have to be covered in another article.
Intonation:
Guitar intonation refers to the proper string length to guitar scale relationship. This is important since the nut has a role in determining the proper scale length. This beginning point of the scale is where the nut and the fretboard join. This is what happens if the nut grooves are filed improperly. The intonation will be thrown off as the guitar string length can fall somewhere 'within' the nut rather than at the outside edge. This will make the guitar impossible to tune and it will sound out of tune when you play it.
Quality of the Guitar Tone:
Another aspect of the nut is how it contributes to the final tone of the guitar. If you are interested to be convinced of this, just replace an ivory nut with a plastic nut in a fine classical guitar. You will not believe the difference. The plastic nut will produce dead or muted sounding notes as compared to the ivory nut. Also the open strings will be much more lively sounding with the ivory.
So materials make a difference in tone quality - we know that. Another important point is to be sure that the nut is properly fit into the guitar neck. If it has full contact and is a nice tight fit, the vibrations of the strings will be more fully transmitted into the guitar neck and the strings will resonate better, thus reaction with the bridge will be improved.
Guitar Tunability:
This problem is most frequently caused through the improper filing of the string channels or string slots. By far the basic way to accomplish this is by the use of gauged nut files. These files are matched to the string diameters for proper channel widths. String slots should have the following qualities:
String slots ought to be round-bottomed to fit the string contour.
To prevent string binding within the guitar nut, each string slot should be slightly wider than each respective string.
The final aspect of a outstanding nut slot, and to minimize string binding, is that it ought to angle toward it's respective tuning machine post.
Preservation of the Strings:
Obviously, if all of the above conditions are met and the string slots are created properly the strings will not be stresses nearly as much at the guitar nut and will age better.
A common mistake of guitar players and luthiers alike is underestimating the importance and the role of the the guitar nut.
In my experience as a guitar building and guitar repairman I have seen nut setups ranging from the perfect nut all the way to a totally screwed up nut setup. The departure can be amazing.
Additionally materials can play a very substantial role in the tone quality of a guitar, particularly when gravitating from a cheap plastic nut to a bone nut.
There are many articles that you can read on the analysis of the nut from actual construction of the nut to material decisions and the perfect string slot setup.
So you can tell that the nut, that little strip of white plastic or bone plays a notable role in the guitar playing ease and tone. The nut is responsible for these guitar attributes:
String Action or Guitar Playability
The Guitar's Intonation
The Guitar Tone
Ease of Tuning the Guitar
Preservation of the Strings
Now we will examine each of these elements in more detail and find out why this little strip of plastic, bone or ivory is of such importance to the guitar's playing ease and tone production.
String Action:
Although this point may seem rather obvious, there is in reality more to it than it seems on the surface. Making minor adjustments to the depth of the string channels in the nut can make an amazing difference in the guitar's ease of playing.
What happens if you go to low with your nut channel adjustments? Yes that is easy to do and you will ruin the nut and have to start all over. What then would be the optimal string groove depth? That subject will have to be covered in another article.
Intonation:
Guitar intonation refers to the proper string length to guitar scale relationship. This is important since the nut has a role in determining the proper scale length. This beginning point of the scale is where the nut and the fretboard join. This is what happens if the nut grooves are filed improperly. The intonation will be thrown off as the guitar string length can fall somewhere 'within' the nut rather than at the outside edge. This will make the guitar impossible to tune and it will sound out of tune when you play it.
Quality of the Guitar Tone:
Another aspect of the nut is how it contributes to the final tone of the guitar. If you are interested to be convinced of this, just replace an ivory nut with a plastic nut in a fine classical guitar. You will not believe the difference. The plastic nut will produce dead or muted sounding notes as compared to the ivory nut. Also the open strings will be much more lively sounding with the ivory.
So materials make a difference in tone quality - we know that. Another important point is to be sure that the nut is properly fit into the guitar neck. If it has full contact and is a nice tight fit, the vibrations of the strings will be more fully transmitted into the guitar neck and the strings will resonate better, thus reaction with the bridge will be improved.
Guitar Tunability:
This problem is most frequently caused through the improper filing of the string channels or string slots. By far the basic way to accomplish this is by the use of gauged nut files. These files are matched to the string diameters for proper channel widths. String slots should have the following qualities:
String slots ought to be round-bottomed to fit the string contour.
To prevent string binding within the guitar nut, each string slot should be slightly wider than each respective string.
The final aspect of a outstanding nut slot, and to minimize string binding, is that it ought to angle toward it's respective tuning machine post.
Preservation of the Strings:
Obviously, if all of the above conditions are met and the string slots are created properly the strings will not be stresses nearly as much at the guitar nut and will age better.
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Get more information on this subject by visiting: Guitar Nut. Another article of interest may be The Importance of the Guitar Nut.
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