Best nut files available in U.K./EU?

thegummy

Just checked and dhl charge 11 quid which is more than the post office.

It's a shame no-one sells stewmac stuff in the uk, it's horrible having to pay so much extra for it  

Corvus

The PO just charged me £11.43 for a Stewmac delivery. Their post could be cheaper for small stuff, I got a big old box for a few small tools. Unless it doesn't make a difference to them cost-wise.

thegummy

Corvus said: 

The PO just charged me £11.43 for a Stewmac delivery. Their post could be cheaper for small stuff, I got a big old box for a few small tools. Unless it doesn't make a difference to them cost-wise.

Is that the total duty or just their fee?

I got the impression that their 7 quid fee was standard

NeilMcG

thegummy said:

Corvus said: 

The PO just charged me £11.43 for a Stewmac delivery. Their post could be cheaper for small stuff, I got a big old box for a few small tools. Unless it doesn't make a difference to them cost-wise.

Is that the total duty or just their fee?

I got the impression that their 7 quid fee was standard

They add the VAT on the whole order to their standard handling charge.

thegummy

NeilMcG said:

thegummy said:

Corvus said: 

The PO just charged me £11.43 for a Stewmac delivery. Their post could be cheaper for small stuff, I got a big old box for a few small tools. Unless it doesn't make a difference to them cost-wise.

Is that the total duty or just their fee?

I got the impression that their 7 quid fee was standard

They add the VAT on the whole order to their standard handling charge.

Aye so when I got them, the duty was just over a tenner and added to that was the Royal mail's own fee of 7 quid.

I got the impression the 7 quid is standard (so the higher the value of the total order, the less significant it is and vice versa).

rico

Whatever the fee is they add on top, it seems a small price to pay for tools that will last years and achieve consistent results. Even more so if it's your livelihood. 

How many mechanics do you know who work with Homebase specials?

thegummy

rico said:

Whatever the fee is they add on top, it seems a small price to pay for tools that will last years and achieve consistent results. Even more so if it's your livelihood. 

How many mechanics do you know who work with Homebase specials?

This is true and I definitely will be buying more stewmac ones shortly.

To be honest, if the stewmac price was just 7 quid extra I wouldn't even have thought twice, just annoys me that the fee gets charged on top of the duty.

Do you guys mostly use the same size as the strings?

mistercharlie

rico said:

Whatever the fee is they add on top, it seems a small price to pay for tools that will last years and achieve consistent results. Even more so if it's your livelihood. 

How many mechanics do you know who work with Homebase specials?

That assumes that the Stew Mac gear is good, and everything else is junk. There’s a middle ground, especially for folks who cut a few of their own nuts a year, not tens every day. 

thegummy

mistercharlie said:

rico said:

Whatever the fee is they add on top, it seems a small price to pay for tools that will last years and achieve consistent results. Even more so if it's your livelihood. 

How many mechanics do you know who work with Homebase specials?

That assumes that the Stew Mac gear is good, and everything else is junk. There’s a middle ground, especially for folks who cut a few of their own nuts a year, not tens every day. 

I believe the stewmac ones will be more precise and cut a more reliable nut, rather than anything to do with speed or longevity, hence why I still opted for them despite cutting very few nuts.

NeilMcG

thegummy said:

mistercharlie said:

rico said:

Whatever the fee is they add on top, it seems a small price to pay for tools that will last years and achieve consistent results. Even more so if it's your livelihood. 

How many mechanics do you know who work with Homebase specials?

That assumes that the Stew Mac gear is good, and everything else is junk. There’s a middle ground, especially for folks who cut a few of their own nuts a year, not tens every day. 

I believe the stewmac ones will be more precise and cut a more reliable nut, rather than anything to do with speed or longevity, hence why I still opted for them despite cutting very few nuts.

Ditto. I started out with the Hosco double-sided files (the ones with a tapered edge that cut two different widths on each file), but they were so inaccurate and cut so far oversized that I sent them back.

The double-sided flat files from Hiroshima and Stewmac cut precise slots every time at their exact thickness, you really can't fault them.

NeilMcG

thegummy said:

mistercharlie said:

rico said:

Whatever the fee is they add on top, it seems a small price to pay for tools that will last years and achieve consistent results. Even more so if it's your livelihood. 

How many mechanics do you know who work with Homebase specials?

That assumes that the Stew Mac gear is good, and everything else is junk. There’s a middle ground, especially for folks who cut a few of their own nuts a year, not tens every day. 

I believe the stewmac ones will be more precise and cut a more reliable nut, rather than anything to do with speed or longevity, hence why I still opted for them despite cutting very few nuts.

Ditto. I started out with the Hosco double-sided files (the ones with a tapered edge that cut two different widths on each file), but they were so inaccurate and cut so far oversized that I sent them back.

The double-sided flat files from Hiroshima and Stewmac cut precise slots every time at their exact thickness, you really can't fault them.

Corvus

The thing with fees & costs is from Stewmac you pay £22 post then VAT and maybe duty, plus handling fee on top. Your 50 quid set of files becomes 90 quid or similar with a 2-week wait. If you need quick post it's another £18 onto the total. So it makes sense to look for alternatives.

At least with nut files good ones are well worth it in the long run, either against paying to have nuts made for you or by improving all your guitars.

Talking quality, the teeth on the pic of the Crimson one look pretty rough... like the apprentice was let loose with a cold chisel..

Sizes - I go a little bit oversize so it can take 11s without fuss, probably 12s, at least until you get to the heavy-bottom sort of sets.

mistercharlie

OP here. My new Ibanez files arrive tomorrow, so I’ll practice on my guinea pig Squier and report back. 

thegummy

Corvus said:

The thing with fees & costs is from Stewmac you pay £22 post then VAT and maybe duty, plus handling fee on top. Your 50 quid set of files becomes 90 quid or similar with a 2-week wait. If you need quick post it's another £18 onto the total. So it makes sense to look for alternatives.

Those numbers are pretty much spot on for the ones I got.

I definitely did look for alternatives and even decided to put a couple of guitars in for a setup even though the nut-filing was the only part I couldn't do myself. It was only when I got them back and the nuts hadn't even been touched that I decided to bite the bullet and pay/wait for the Stewmac files so I never had to be messed around with a setup again.

thegummy

Put an order in this morning for another set of Stewmac files.

The postage was around 11 quid I think, will have to wait to see what the duty is.

Do items sometimes get through without being charged duty or is it every single item that gets through gets taxed?

GloopyJon

Hello, new member here (I'll post an intro in the relevant section shortly).  Just to mention that I bought the full set of nut files from Crimson Guitars, which seems like a great alternative because you get an extensive selection of files and they are cheaper than any other comparable option.  However, I think that they are simply feeler gauges with rough teeth cut into them by hand, and I didn't find them very easy to work with (from my experience there, they don't use them in-house!).

I like a lot of the tools and supplies that they sell, so please don't take a negative impression of Crimson Guitars from this post....it's really just this product that I think is sub-par.

streethawk

mistercharlie said:

I went for these in the end. Not cheap, but available, and flat-sided.


€99 from Thomann. I shall report back when I’ve tried them. 

I use these, they're pretty good.

The finest one (.010) is good for starting finer notches but it's easy to bend if you're heavy handed like me.

rico

Thread bump - any update on what's available for a decent price?

slash1953

SteveRobinson said:

I've got the Hosco ones from Tonetech but I prefer my Stewmac ones because they are more precise. 

Delivery from Stewmac usually takes a couple of days and I usually buy enough stuff that the DHL surcharge isn't such a problem.

I found Hosco files cut way oversize? In fact I contacted them and they replaced the whole set.Guess what? They were the same. Stewmac much better imo?

slash1953

thegummy said:

mistercharlie said:

rico said:

Whatever the fee is they add on top, it seems a small price to pay for tools that will last years and achieve consistent results. Even more so if it's your livelihood. 

How many mechanics do you know who work with Homebase specials?

That assumes that the Stew Mac gear is good, and everything else is junk. There’s a middle ground, especially for folks who cut a few of their own nuts a year, not tens every day. 

I believe the stewmac ones will be more precise and cut a more reliable nut, rather than anything to do with speed or longevity, hence why I still opted for them despite cutting very few nuts.

I had a stewmac gile that cut a .032'' slot when it was supposed to be .020"!!!