Beedster

And BTW, that was the polite version

Ah, THIS eBay seller, bassitup2010, complete and total fraudster, sold me a fretless bass making all sorts of claims that I could establish were clearly 100% untrue when I opened the box, yet still he persisted, "It's an original Allparts neck that i bought new for several hundred pounds in the 1980s and have been playing it since then" of a cheap Chinese made neck that was pretty much brand new and clearly unplayed. He plays on this "I'm a bass player these are my basses I'm selling" bull, he just buys cheap tack and presents them as quality instruments. Complete derrière, avoid like the plague

Bronze strings are the devil's work

Tell me about it! It resisted for a while - I was using nail clippers to avoid applying too much leverage - but I followed @Manton Customs advice on moving slightly back and forth and it popped out a good'un! There's a little glue residue in there as you can see from the pic, but a little gentle action with a craft blade and it's coming away nicely. Relief for me was that the nut hadn't adhered to the binding 👍

Phew

Thanks so much @Manton Customs, I'll take. a look ASAP Assuming I can get the old nout out OK does anyone know whether I'm going to need to file down a standard Jazz nut or whether shorter nuts for bound instruments available, haven't found any yet?

Agreed @3below, might be nothing but don't want to pull that nut out only for find half the board comes with it 👍

Many thanks @3below, looks like either a long and tortuous process or a pro repair! Annoyingly it still plays fine, at least with heavy flats, as there's just enough of the groove left, but I suspect one these things start to go further degradation is never far away

I write in F or Bb, occasionally G and C, but never A or E

A small piece has chipped off the treble side of my Jazz Bass neck (might be wrong but it looks to me like it might have happened befpre as there are hints of what looks like glue on the binding?). I usually install and set up nuts on my basses as I like my action a certain way, especially on fretless. I've not done it on a bound neck before however, anything I need to know re either removing the existing nut or installing the new one? All help gratefully received. Chris