Not Very Interesting String Nut Jobbie

[BassMunkee]

So I get my new Rotosound 40/100 with the nice red cottony bits on and I take my old strings off and put my new strings on...
G: check
D: check
A: oops - doesn't fit in my nut, the old strings were the same gauge, so anyway I try some brute force. That's better.
E: check
Tuning up: check
Bit of a play: oo-er that's a bit funky, and not in a James-Brown-Sexy-Crotch way

So me nut's come off, pulled off by the A string d'oh.
So anyway a bit of filing later and some super glue and we're good to go, strange though coz when I changed the strings 3 years ago or so, they fitted fine, still there we go.
Thought I would share that.

[phil_the_bassist]

[quote name='BassMunkee' post='266061' date='Aug 20 2008, 08:28 AM']So I get my new Rotosound 40/100 with the nice red cottony bits on and I take my old strings off and put my new strings on...
G: check
D: check
A: oops - doesn't fit in my nut, the old strings were the same gauge, so anyway I try some brute force. That's better.
E: check
Tuning up: check
Bit of a play: oo-er that's a bit funky, and not in a James-Brown-Sexy-Crotch way

So me nut's come off, pulled off by the A string d'oh.
So anyway a bit of filing later and some super glue and we're good to go, strange though coz when I changed the strings 3 years ago or so, they fitted fine, still there we go.
Thought I would share that.[/quote]

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[thedontcarebear]

Shouldn't superglue it!

[Guest MoJo]

Having to force the string into the nut would cause tuning problems later IMO. Athough the string should fit snuggly in the slot it should slide easily through the nut.

On a similar vein, I thought I'd change to .110"-.050" gauge strings so that when tuned down a semitone from A=440Hz I would have a string tension similar to my normal set .105"-.045" that I use in standard tuning. All was going well until I tuned the thing up when the outer section of the nut beneath the E string snapped off and flew across the room. Closer examination revealed that the A string was also sitting high off the seat of the nut slot thus:-



Having used a micrometer to measure sets of strings before, I can safely say that nominal sizes of bass guitar strings are just that and string diameter can vary minutely from manufacturer to manufacturer (or even from one batch to another). It goes to show that even a difference as small as .005" (about a eighth of a millimeter) can sometimes require modification of the nut slot

Edited August 20, 2008 by bassman2790

[BassMunkee]

See that's the thing - nail file to the nut, sorted.
Goes to show that even the same gauge can have variation, and it wasn't that much tbh.
Probably shouldn't super glue it, no, but I'm not gonna want to remove it so I figure what the hell.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

Superglue is fine as long as its only two or three dots as this should break when the nut is knocked to allow it to be removed.

[Galilee]

Three years? You change strings every 3 years? Clearly the nut will have dessicated and contracted during that period.

Probably.

[BassMunkee]

What can I say - I like dirty strings, because they sound nice - I just thought I would treat myself with some shiny ones.
I keep the old ones anyway sometimes I reuse them for a particular thing if i want a tone that is less bright.

[budget bassist]

Fair enough, i generally leave mine for about a year before changing anyway, it gets expensive otherwise!
Also upon closer inspection, my G string (oh god) isn't quite sitting in the nut properly, might borrow my sister's nail file haha. It's been like that since i changed the strings about 4 months ago though so it's not really a problem.