The nut is possibly the single most important part of a guitar to get right – if you want it to be easy to play and to play (and stay) in tune. For this reason, Reloved Guitars has always focused on getting the perfect 1st fret action and ensuring friction-free nut slots… In the last couple of years my quest for the perfect nut has led me to fitting custom-modified Tusq adjustable nuts to all my own – and increasingly all my customers’ – guitars.
The custom adjustable Tusq nut gives you the best of all worlds: un-touched factory smooth slots and the ability to bring those slots UP to the correct 1st fret action. No more cutting down with ragged nut files to get the perfect 1/10th mm action.
The Strat / Tele style nut uses 2 or 3 custom-tapped grub screws that stand in very slight compressions in the nut slot (ensuring the nut doesn’t move sideways). There *may* be a very slight amount of further compression over the nut’s working life – however if that does occur, a tiny adjustment of the grub screws takes care of it. I offer these nuts custom-made by mail-order at £35 ‘ready to fit’ for home-installation / upgrade. Precise measurement of the nut slot depth, front-to-back thickness and width as well as fret height is necessary to ensure closest possible fit. Disclaimer: Custom adjustable Strat / Tele Tusq nuts *may* still require very fine sanding to final fit.
The custom adjustable Tusq nut for Les Pauls and other 3-tuners-aside guitars involves a different process. Tusq happens to make an adjustable insert – a solution to the unacceptably fast-notching brass adjustable zero fret that Gibson fitted on their LPs around 2015. To use this very useful insert, I make a custom resin/plastic base to fit customers’ guitars. Again, for mail orders very careful measurements of the depth of the fretboard-end nut slot, width, front-to-back thickness and fret height are required to be sure of a good fit but some very fine sanding may still be required.
