Filling Tusq nut slots?

[Keith Somerville]

Hi guys,

As a cost-effective repair I quite often fill nut slots with bone powder and CA and get good results. Wondering if such a fix is worthwhile on graphite/Tusq nuts? What would be a suitable filler and would there be any difficulty bonding to the nut material?

Hope you're all having busy summers!

--Keith

[Greg Mirken]

I find that repair technique to be short-lived. As an alternative I will saw out a square section under the string slot and inlay a matching piece of bone [with CA]. Obviously this is a much more involved procedure and only makes economic sense to do for one or two strings, or on an original ivory nut. Any more and you might as well replace the nut.

As for Tusq nuts, I just throw them away. On graphite I guess you could use black tinted CA for a temporary fix, but I have never tried it.

[Mike Kolb]

I've gone 'round & 'round with nut repair procedures.... most seem to work for a while, some aren't terribly effective. Maybe Tusq® responds well with the dental/UV light fill fix that works fine for bone?

In any event, these days usually find me chucking the offending nut and making a new one. Just seems simpler & faster that way, IMHO.

[Hesh Breakstone]

We've found CA and dust to not last long and stopped doing it

Instead we use light cured composite dental fillings and have the light gun, etching and bonding agents, and a plethora of shades and colors so we can even match Goober Gobber with the green teeth if necessary....  Remember J, Giles anyone...:)  The dental fillings work extremely well for us and are as harder or harder than bone and much more wear and abrasion resistant than CA and dust.  It's also fast making it easy to do at no additional charge if say a set-up escaped our triage look and has low nut slots.

I also believe that this idea of dental fillings that I got from Dave Collins Dave Collins got from Frank.  Thanks Frank!

We won't work with aftermarket nuts of any stripe and instead just make a new bone nut finding that the fitting well of an aftermarket nut takes us just as long as making a new bone nut custom made and fit to the specific instrument.

No tusk, graphite, pl*stic for us.

[Russell Vance]

Hi Keith,

We use Graphtech nuts in our production guitars for a number of good reasons but we just throw blown nuts away because they only cost a couple of bucks and are identical from unit to unit.  That's the same price as a chinese bone blank and way cheaper than shooting a cow, bleaching it's bones on the shed roof, sawing up the shins, boiling and bleaching it and doing lots of filin' and cussin' on the way to destroying one in every two etc. 

That's  not a serious take on bone...it's just to stir up Hesh and the Acoustic bone polishing crew.

Graphtec Tusq XL and "string saver"  is slippery stuff and while it's easy enough to CA glue a shim on the bottom it's nigh impossible to get anything to stay in the slots, that's all I know.

Rusty.

[Hesh Breakstone]

LOL - Got me good there Rusty! :)  Good going!!!

[Keith Somerville]

Thanks for the replies, fellas! Anyone in the UK using this dental paste technology? I really like the sound of it!

FWIW, I've been impressed with the Tusq XL material. Has an actual tone, is tough and bright.