SE Nut - Why the hostility?

Don't I know it! It's time for license renewal at the DTR household, and for some reason, everything is in my name. Both my cars and my wifes truck, our golf cart, camper and trailer, all in my name. I went in for new license plate stickers on Friday and it was $248.50! :eek::eek:
I guess even dragons are subject to the California cattle prod. Last renewal cost me $220.Good part is, havent had to pay for a smog check in six years, though next year will be the last.
 
Smog check? The Dems will have us all driving golf carts to work by next year.

Wait, I didn't mean to say that out loud.
Hey man, whaddya got against golf carts? Nothing screams chick magnet like rollin down the road in grandpas miller light stained golf cart.
 
I play an SE custom 24 and changed the standard nut for a graphtec one quite quickly after purchase. From then on no more tuning instability.
I'll also attest to the Graphtech hype. And as Agufish frequently says, "Graphtech are the Nut Masters"
 
Same here, wrt tuning. Plus, the nut on my SE Cu 24 protruded a little too much. There's no question about this, IMO.

(keep it going with protruding nut jokes, please :))
 
I'm a new PRS SE owner. Never had one before. It's awesome. Custom 24-08 in Eriza Green. And I'm assuming it's a 2021.

In reading up on forums and interwebs, it seems there's been a consistent historical distaste and hatred for the SE nuts. I was about to swap mine out, just because I read it so many times in resaerching this guitar.

Here's the part I don't get from reading all the threads. When I started playing guitar, it was kind of understood that a NON locking trem was not going to stay in tune too well on heavy use, much less divebomb use. That's what Floyds are for. Even when Fender did the roller nut on the Strat Plus - it didn't really work. I don't know why that's different now, but it seems like everyone who gets an SE changes the nut because of binding at the nut when they divebomb. It's weird to me. I wouldn't even put that expectation on a NON locking trem.

That said, I did go in and fan out the exits of my nut slots with sandpaper, so the slot exits now align with the string exit angle. And I also put some nut sauce in the slots and at the saddles. My trem with stock nut holds tune fine. I can play the intro to Wicked Game 10 times in a row, and I don't get any binding at the nut. Not sure why I read so many others going crazy about swapping nuts right away on SE's. Did production improve nut material recently or something? The nut I have is totally adequate. I'm just coming from the 90's when you just accepted that you had to do all kinds of voodoo engineering to make a regular strat trem even have a chance of holding tune. I'm just surprised reading that people now expect so much tuning stability from a non locking trem these days. (Although I have Gotoh 510's on other guitars that do work really well - but I consider that a miracle, not the norm for stock.)

I did upgrade to the locking tuners though, but only because because the SE tuner gear ratios sucked. If it wasn't for the sucky tuner machine feel, I wouldn't have even changed the tuners. They held tune fine. Just felt like poop when I would want to fine tune.


Well I can tell you I get s lot of them in for nut and bridge work, the se range are not finished off properly, nut can be beyond making good and do need replacing, the bridge is another thing entirely, the screw and knife edge holes can be bad fitting so the chrome on the screws impede the location of the edge and cause tuning issues, also the tapered hole for string location in the block can in some allow the ferrule of the string to go to far up towards the bridge plate and the string wrap fowls the bridge plate as it can sometime over hang, so you end up with a little spring that's keeps sendin that string out, also the acute angle from plate to saddle can be an issue on some , the tuners, ratio is 18:1 but they are clumpy and seem very unpredictable at times, so yes there are many issues with se models and tuning problems, I've had a good few come through
 
I just put the stock nut back on my 245 STD and it sounds and plays better than with the composite nut from the PRS store.

That's probably my crappy nut install, but the difference was very noticeable. I'm not going to fight the stock nut if it sounds ok.

My point being...not all SE factory nuts suck.
 
My point being...not all SE factory nuts suck.

Maybe you got that diamond in the rough. I have a suspicion, due to the size of the slots, that the stock nut works better with heavier strings.

I do think it's decent material, just needs refining. Maybe if I had a blank and cut it myself Id get better results. I also think it's best on stoptails. I totally feel that it needs the boot on trem equipped guitars for sure.
 
I just put the stock nut back on my 245 STD and it sounds and plays better than with the composite nut from the PRS store.

That's probably my crappy nut install, but the difference was very noticeable. I'm not going to fight the stock nut if it sounds ok.

My point being...not all SE factory nuts suck.
I think, for many on here at least, it’s the perception of nationality that’s the problem, however from what I can tell by looking at the nut on my SE and my core they appear to be identical?

I’ve not seen anything on here from PRS themselves to clarify the situation, which is puzzling. I mean, are they the same or not? It’s not a difficult question.
 
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