Nut Files what to buy?

[Phil Starr]

I want to bring the string height down a little on some of my basses. I'm looking at nut files and they seem to be either less than £10 or over £200 with little in between. There are also some sets of two or three with plastic handles  labelled  sizes 3-5 without saying what 3-5 actually means in mm or inches. There are also setsof needle files for general purpose use but I already have sets of these, and I've seen people wrapping old strings in sandpaper and using that as a tool. 

 

It's Christmas and peopleare asking what to buy me. There's nething I really want but if I could find something that would make the job easier then files in the £20-30 range would be a great present I'd actually use. I hate the idea of people wasting money on something I wouldn't use. Any suggstions?

[Pea Turgh]

Also interested in the answers.  Asked a bloke in a music shop about a file set 20-odd years ago.  He said it was cheaper just to pay for a set up.

 

 

50 basses later… 🤦🏻‍♂️

[paul_5]

If you’re only going to do it once then a cheap set is fine, depends how many nut replacements you plan on doing in the future…

[PaulThePlug]

Use off cuts of string as a gauge.

Fine wet & dry round a string off cut?

I have used a round needle file - turning round at the appropriate width, rather back and forth where just the odd nut slot needed attention.

I wonder if something in the Model Making world might fit the bill for hobby or infrequent use. 

[kodiakblair]

An Aussie bloke had a thread on this over on TalkBS 😀

 

He'd bought round diamond files from an Ali-Ex tool store, B2 Mold Accessories, and wanted to share his good news. Now as the name suggests, B2 are a tool store selling a wide range of abrasives.

 

Pretty important point as instead of some joker touting welding tip files to "luthiers" it's a business with a focus on grinding and shaping tools 🙂

 

Caused a few ruffled feathers with the Stew Mac/Gotoh crowd, especially when he countered their "Buy quality, buy once. Buy cheap, buy twice" pish by pointing out that at $1AUD he could buy 100 times and still not reach to their $105USD 😃

 

They cost a bit more now, £1.46 each or 5 for £2.82. For bass guitars you want 1.2mm (0.046) going up to 3.2mm (0.125).

 

I'd leave a link but copy/paste is just leaving text 😞 

 

Will post a follow once I see where I'm going wrong 👍

[Si600]

@kodiakblair If you right click and paste as plain text that usually leaves a link rather than a description.

 

If you're on a mobile or Mac you're on your own I'm afraid 😉

[Mediocre Polymath]

I tried a few of the cheap ones you see on Amazon/Ebay/everywhere else and they worked for about 2/3rds of a set-up. I tried to get by with those, and with regular needle files – I even built a few guitars with a zero fret precisely because that was easier than trying to get the nut right. I eventually carved and bought a set of StewMac files in 2018 or so, and they have served me well through about a dozen set-ups and six (seven?) guitar/bass/mandolin builds. 

[kodiakblair]

@Si600

 

I gave that a go but got the same result, just a text description.

 

Thought I'd try again with another browser, healthy reminder why I dumped Google Chrome 😃 Slower than a slow thing and for some reason it's forgot how to auto enter my password.

 

Sorry folks this is way too much trouble just to save you going to Ali-Ex yourself, entering "Long Shank Diamond Round Micro File" and clicking the one at £1.46 👍