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 👍

[tauzero]

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004890664840.html ?

[kodiakblair]

@tauzero

 

You're a star.

 

No idea how you managed it but you did 🙂 Thanks for putting in the effort, it's much appreciated 👏

[tauzero]

Put mouse cursor at start of address bar, hold down left mouse button, move along to the .html (stop just before the question mark), Ctrl-C and you have it all ready to be pasted. That's in Chrome, other browsers are the same.

[kodiakblair]

Weird.

 

Followed your link. Left click to highlight address, right click copy then right click paste here. Just pastes the item description header.

Same result with left click, run the mouse, Ctrl-C then Ctrl-V here or when I used Crtl - right click paste.

 

Now copy/paste is working but only if I skip .html  

[Hellzero]

This set is labelled and will work for your needs: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Holmer-Nut-Slotting-Crowning-Luthier/dp/B08JGDN2V2

 

[Phil Starr]

1 hour ago, Hellzero said:

This set is labelled and will work for your needs: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Holmer-Nut-Slotting-Crowning-Luthier/dp/B08JGDN2V2

 

Thanks this is just what I was looking for, it fulfills the 'Christmas Present' part of the brief in looking more satisfying than a set of 'wires' and being in just about the right price range. The little diamond files from Ali Express are what I would buy myself for a one off job so many thanks to @kodiakblair and @tauzero for their advice too. Let's see what Santa brings