Adventures in nut installation...(question)

[ReptilianNosewood]

Anybody ever have it where the area at the headstock where the finish ends and creates a little slot for the nut to sit in, is too narrow to let a stock PRS nut sit flush? All the pics ive looked at show the finish ending and leaving a perfect sized gap, or the finish being continuous as to be flat so the nut can still sit flush. When i installed the nut that finish edge forced the nut to tilt forward to make contact with the fretboard edge leaving a gap in several places. It looks like maybe the previous owner or a tech noticed this and tried to sand the edge as i noticed it was all rough looking. Could the nut being tilted forward cause tuning issues like that? Im not going to bring it to another tech because 3 of them looked at this and said nothing to me about it, as well as all 3 of them butchering the nut slots, im determined to learn this myself as i have had no luck with luthiers working on my PRSi.

 

[elvis]

That sounds bad. I would sand the headstock side of the nut until it were thin enough to fit in the existing slot.

The slots in the nut should angle upward slightly from the headstock side to the fretboard side so that the string makes solid contact right at the edge of the nut where it hits the fretboard. The slot should not be so angled that it catches the string and gets worn down during bending and tuning.

If the nut leans forward as you describe, then the string may make contact farther back from the fretboard edge, it may stick in the slot. If it does make contact at the fretboard edge, the fact that the nut is leaning forward a bit may make the distance from nut to first fret enough to mess with your intonation.

 

[andy474x]

It could cause problems, yes. Especially if the tilt is such that the strings aren't fully in contact with the deepest part of the slot all the way through the nut, i.e. not in contact as they leave going toward the frets.

What I would do - tap the nut out with a block of wood (look for a YouTube vid to illustrate), then get a straight edge and score the finish with an exacto knife at the proper width for the nut. Once you've scored deep enough (giggity) flake the finish off. Then take some med/fine grit sandpaper and cut a strip the exact width of the nut, and about an inch longer. Put it on the bottom of the nut, grit down, and use it as a sanding block to even out the slot. Not too aggressive, just want to smooth not make the groove deeper. Then glue your nut in, boom!

 

[sergiodeblanc]

What Andy said.

 

[ReptilianNosewood]

That is what i was thinking. I did not do anything to the finish and was able to sand the nut enough to get it mostly flush but it still has gaps. Gonna check out how it reacts at the session tonight and make another attempt at the nut again next week. Thanks for the input guys!