It’s nice sometimes to get stuck into something a little more out of the ordinary, I would probably pass this one by in a shop if it were for sale but it’s nice, nice but with a few fundamental flaws. Once they’ve been sorted out it’ll be really nice…
First thing first, the nut. A plastic nut padded out with sandpaper? I can think of better materials to do that with, but whatever, more of that later….
I’m going to fit a new nut but before I did anything I cleaned out the slot to square and clean it off…
Then I taped up the fretboard and marked the fret tops ready to dress…
By marking the tops of the frets I can easily see where the levelling beam is touching and therefore where the low points are, the high spots are filled down while the low spots aren’t touched yet…
As the job goes on it’s clear that there is a low area between the 14th and 24th frets on the treble side and around the 13th under the A string. I need to keep going until everything is at a common level…
With the fret tops level I need to round them off again (to take off the flat tops) and polish them using 4 grades of micromesh cloth…
Back to that nut. It’s a little large for an “off the shelf” item so I need to start with a large bone blank..
Some of the blanks aren’t too square and need a little work to square off the bottom, sides and file down to right thickness….
Now that it fits in the slot I need to work the ends. The head starts with a gentle flare so the nut has to follow the shape, you don’t want any sharp edges…
Now that it fits in the slot nicely I need to shape the top. Using the old nut as a guide I shaped the new blank, not forgetting that the old nut was a little low.
So far so good…
Now I need to cut the slots for the strings, just shallow slots to start with so I know where they need to be and I’ll cut them to full depth when I do the setup.
Before that I gave the fretboard a good clean and oil…
With the strings on and at tension there was a little too much set in the neck…
so I tightened up the truss-rod a little…
Next the action height at the 12th fret. It’s a little high so I need to drop the bridge a little…
Here the trouble starts. Each bridge saddle is adjustable but I couldn’t wind them down enough…
Taking them out one at a time although some had different markings they were all the same height…
so all I could do was to file a couple of mm off the bottom…
With the outside “E” string heights set then I did the same for the others, matching the curve in the fretboard so that the heights are nice and even…
Now back to that nut. The action at the first fret was way too high (I’d be stuffed if it was too low)….
so out with the nut files to cut each slot to the right depth…
Last but one, the Intonation. As I’ve not moved the bridge it shouldn’t need to be changed, but then again, was it right beforehand, apparently no!…
Lastly a quick sound-check, pickup heights etc, make sure it all works and plays nicely….
Yeh, I like it…
