Quick nut job

Rabs

Most of you on here seem to know what you are doing so im not sure how much interest this will be but here goes anyway 

A friend of mine was given an Epi SG...  An Emily Strange one (really don't know who that is?)..  This is now the second time I have seen this guitar..  the first time I got it the neck had a HUGE bow in it and I straightened it out which seemed to sort it out at the time but the owner has been telling me that its been constantly going out of tune.

This is the guitar

https://i.imgur.com/WuMKed3.jpg

So I gave it another look over and all I could really see wrong was the nut slots...  I didn't really look at it last time as straightening the neck seemed to work.

This is what it looked like

https://i.imgur.com/L3OrrA1.jpg

Anyone who knows, knows that Gibson style headtsocks with huge headstock and string angles needs a well cut nut and if the slots are too deep it can cause binding.

So I had a replacement.. A nice graphite one (on the left)

https://i.imgur.com/NR069Vy.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/oyUf0te.jpg

And after a bit of filling to get it to shape and give me good action it goes on..  That's how I think it should be. They should be sitting in the slot deep enough so it wont ping out when you bend but shallow enough to allow free movement.

https://i.imgur.com/5NJfQ20.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/oGtM3tV.jpg

Then cos I had a spare set of tuners I decided to replace the pretty crap ones on there.. with less crappy ones

https://i.imgur.com/xwJJSVi.jpg?1

https://i.imgur.com/vBioeQX.jpg?1

SORTED

ICBM

https://www.emilystrange.com

Nice job on the nut by the look of it.

For what it's worth it's not the depth of the slots that allows free movement, it's how smoothly cut the bottom of the groove is, and not making it too tight. The nut must come up to at least the halfway point on the diameter to stop the strings jumping out when bent, but it can be any height you like above that since that part does not touch the string. But if it's too tall it can snag your hand, so you don't really want it to stick up above the tops of the strings. Looks like you have it about perfect.

Rabs

ICBM said:

https://www.emilystrange.com

Nice job on the nut by the look of it.

For what it's worth it's not the depth of the slots that allows free movement, it's how smoothly cut the bottom of the groove is, and not making it too tight. The nut must come up to at least the halfway point on the diameter to stop the strings jumping out when bent, but it can be any height you like above that since that part does not touch the string. But if it's too tall it can snag your hand, so you don't really want it to stick up above the tops of the strings. Looks like you have it about perfect.

Well from what I know its only a real issue (deep slots) on Gibson style headstocks because of the crazy string angle from the nut to the tuner..  On say a PRS where the string path is straight it makes no difference but on a headstock like that if the slots are deep the strings can get caught (especially the G and B ) and thus cause binding issues and they keep going out of tune..  This way they at least wont get caught on the back end of the slot.

But yeah I think the ideal situation is to have the string half in and half out of the slot (and yes that its rounded at the bottom),