FREE Shipping by Amazon. Smaller hands will find this very comfortable as do players who mostly play rhythm. If the nut slot is flat, then the string will rattle and buzz when played open. ). This meant I had to drastically over-compensate at the bridge end (see second pic). The following setup procedures and specifications are for your Telecaster as equipped with the strings that come on the instrument as standard equipment from the factory. The owner, and several repair techs at the other end of the country, had almost given up on it. The vice allows you to just go for it and be as aggressive and messy as you like. His debut album This is Who I am was released in 2016 followed by his first book Goa : A Lesson in Life, published in 2017. Nothing to worry about here, just use what you can…. Fender-Style nuts can be knocked out with a will placed hammer strike. Setting up string height at the nut is somewhat mystical. Nut slot height isn't about making the distance from string to fret the same all along the neck. If it doesn’t, you need to file down the nut. To do this, use wood glue. Repeat until you reach the proper height, and then move … The distance from the top of the 1st fret to the bottom of the string should be just a hair, for sure. Get it as soon as Wed, Dec 2. I find this is too small to me measured. Does the bottom of the nut look nice and level in the vice? The Blogging Musician has grown from a personal hub into a valuable resource community for musicians and writers alike. Even with minimal string height at the nut, it could not play first position C maj and E maj chords without one of them sounding sour - either a sharp third in one chord, or a sharp root and flat fifth in the other. Make sure it is evenly spread across the base of the nut. The guitar nut height on my Yamaha Pacifica 112J needed serious attention. Luckily, there’s a much easier and cheaper way to sort the problem. Another way to describe it would be the angle of the strings to the frets, between the bridge and the nut. You can usually go lower than this, especially on the treble strings but.015" is about as low as I go. TDPRI, short for Telecaster Discussion Page Reissue, is the leading online community and marketplace for Telecaster guitars. Good. Just a small amount is needed. http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Files/Gauged_Nut_Slotting_Files.html, (You must log in or sign up to reply here. Line 6 Variax: Still thinking about buying one? The distance from the string to the first fret will always be higher than the fretted first to the second fret height. Nut height is only a part of the equation. Why the Fender Stratocaster is better than the Gibson Les Paul. Adam Harkus is a guitarist, singer/songwriter and author with a new-found passion for sharing the knowledge and experience gained from 20 years of playing, writing and producing. 99. Receive notifications of new posts by email. I always thought nut height depends on how long your legs are. Final nut height has a huge impact in the overall dynamics and perceived tension of the guitar. This should be a 30 second job with coarse sandpaper and a wooden block, longer the finer the sandpaper and the softer the block gets. FREE Shipping. All you would be doing is making the first fret a 'zero' fret, which it isn't. 99. Telecaster® Adjustment And Care. *Of course, your guitar nut may need to be lowered on just the bass side, or both, but all the same tips apply. A 'zero' fret simply replaces the nut slots with a fret, but it still needs to be the same height as the nut slots would have been without the zero fret. Depending on the original height, Open chords may appear to sound more ‘in-tune’ due to the strings bending less distance to the fret. The maximum height I would use for regular (not slide) playing is about.020." Select a file that best fits the fret, and file the fret down a small amount. Surely everyone has these in one of their cupboards. Re-glue the nut. We are dealing in fractions of a millimetre here. The three wound string were fine, but as you can see from the pic below, the nut height increased dramatically for the top three strings. Say about .006-.010 some suggested almost fret height. I researched and read a lot of info on the web and TGP about recommended nut height as compared to the height of the frets and most info recommends it should be just over that height. Tools Needed. Just a small dot of glue is all you need to hold the nut in place. What I do is put a business card between the 1st fret and the string, it should be tight. $59.99 $ 59. You want to be sanding the bottom of the guitar nut, so be very careful you have positioned it correctly in the vice.