I’ve rather fancied one of these myself.  One of these years.  This one just has a few problems though, the biggest one being not staying in tune.

Most tuning stability problems come from the nut, bending a string pulls it through a little but when you let go it doesn’t go back fully, leaving the string out of tune.

I still don’t think you can beat good old fashioned bone for the nut so I’m just going to replace the old one.

While the strings are off, a good clean…

and oil.

So on to that new nut. From a large blank, start by cutting it roughly down to size.  

And then grind it down to the right thickness..

With it fitting in the slot next get it to the right length.  

Then shape the top, using the old nut as a guide.

With the shape and profile done glue it back into place.

Mark out the location for the outside “E” strings.

noting that the bass “E” string is thicker than the other so it’s the outside edge that’s important.

With that then mark up the other strings locations.

and start the slots.  Being careful not to go too deep, just enough so hold the strings in place.

Now a standard 5 point setup..

No.1  The neck relief.

with a tweek on the truss-rod.

No.2  The action at the 12th fret…    

by adjusting the bridge heights

No.3  The action at the first fret.  Way too high of course…

Now I can cut the slots to the right depth.

That does leave the top of the nut a little high and rather ugly.

So take the strings off again and file the top down to a reasonable profile.

That’s better.

All I need to do then is to check the intonation and pickup heights and it’s good to go.

And there it is, all done.

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