I'm going nuts

[Donald A. Fortune]

I think I need some sort of help here- I'm having a time and a half trying to make a nut from scratch.
I generally use bone for this purpose if that makes a difference.
I start off with a blank piece of bone and shape it to the neck of the guitar and then here's where I run into trouble------ I cant seem to get the depth of the cuts in the nut to be the depth that I need to make it playable....
Any suggestions on how to do this operation and have the depth of the cut the same across the nut???
I hope I'm nit confusing anyone here and have explained my problem to some sort of clarity...
Peace, Donald

[john r toothman]

try a thin strip of brass/aluminum something the same approximate height of the frets use double face tape to hold it down t
hen you can file away at it till you hit the stop...should be the right height. hope this helps, works for me john

[Tim Mace]

I use a feeler gauge to figure/match the fret height but you need to ramp the groove dn toward the tuners.Add .010" to fret height for bottom of slot.Works for me.

[Frank Ford]

Lots of us use the "half-pencil " trick. Read about it in these articles:

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Tools/HalfPencil/halfpencil...

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/Setup/NewNut/newn...

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/Setup/SetNut/setn...

[Donald A. Fortune]

Thanx for the help guys- and Mr.Ford, I somehow missed the text that you show here when I visited your other site
DAAAAAAAA-- but thanx for all the info -- now all I have to do is grab my self a bunch of nut blanks that I will make out of corian ( X- cabinet maker here) and have at it--
Again thanx for the suggestions people
Peace, Donald