Guitar Shop with Guitar ER

COLD
WEATHER
PROTECTION

The Doc is in,
The cold weather is upon us, well most of us in the central to northern area's, so thought I would bring up a point that most of us forget about when taking our guitars out of our homes and studios. First put your guitar in your case (soft shell, gig bag or hard shell) do not take it out to your mode of transportation and let it sit there getting cold. Not real good but your guitar can handle it. But the biggest part is that rapid change from warm to cold or cold to warm can and does crack finishes on your guitars. The best way to avoid this is to warm up your transportation first so your guitar is not sitting in a cold car, van or whatever. Then when you arrive at your gig, practice or jam let your guitar sit for about 45 minutes to 1 hour to warm to room temp. in its case. When a guitar has major changes in the air temp it can and sometimes will crack the finish and in acoustic guitars a top can crack. So be careful, unwanted finish checking and body cracks can be avoided.

Doc, I have a problem with my guitar buzzing. When I fret the guitar it does not buzz but when I play open strings it buzzes can you help? Dan in despair.

Well Dan, it sounds to me like you have a nut that is in despair, so lets take care of your problem. Now there are a few ways to take care of this. First lets take a look at the nut to see if we have a problem. Check to see if when the strings lay in the slot in the nut that there is no side ways movement of the strings or large gaps. This can cause a buzzing when the string is hit. The reason why is because the string vibrates and as this vibration is happening the string is hitting the sides of the nut and buzzing. Also the string should only fit halfway down in the nut slot, (you should see about half of the string sitting above the nut). The reason for this is also the same, the string vibrates and when this happens it can hit the sides and cause a buzzing. Now one other possibility is that the strings have worn away the bottom of the nut slot and the string is hitting the first fret when the string is hit. Now that we have looked at the nut and found that one or all of these problems is causing the buzzing lets look at a home fix it, until you can get a new nut to stop the problem.

So here are a few of the things you are going to need to repair your problem until you can make or purchase or have your repair person make you a new nut. Lets start off with some masking tape, super-glue (thin), baking soda, set of strings (old) same gauge that you are going to put on your guitar, rubber eraser, and fine sandpaper (320 grit or finer).

First lets look at the old nut. If it is plastic it is best to get a new nut, plastic is ok but the sound can be dry and plastic can break easy. I prefer to use bone (vintage) , but bone is not needed. There are many new good products out there now. Some of the products are graphite, Tusq (synthetic ivory), Micarta, bleached bone, and Ivory (which is very expensive) and these can be ordered pre-cut and slotted, even though some height adjustments are most likely needed for replacement. If the nut has a chip out of it the best thing to do is to replace, but if that is not a option until later, this will help you get by until you can replace it. First clean out the slot that the strings sit in, this helps the glue hold on. You can clean the slot with sand paper or a exacto knife, then get your masking tape and put a piece of tape from the top edge of the nut on the fretboard side down the side of the nut so it will cover the sides of the string slot on the nut. Then repeat this on the headstock side of the nut. Now after you are sure you have the tape on good and tight and not over the top of the nut, put a small amount of baking soda in the fret slots. Then use a knife-edge or your finger to brush off any extra baking soda so it is level with the top of the nut. Now comes the part where you must be very careful. Put one small drop of super-glue onto the baking soda. The super-glue will leak down into the baking soda and become rock hard. After the glue has hardened you can pull off the masking tape. You now have a nut that the slots need to be cut. To do this you can use an old set of strings (the same gauge you are putting back on your guitar) to cut the slots. Take the old string and hold it tight between both hands and use the string as a saw blade. The windings on the string will do the cutting. It will be slow but you don't want to cut too fast anyway. After you have started the slot (not cut to deep) you need to restring your guitar. This way you can use your new strings as a height gauge. After your new strings are on don't tighten them all the way. When you are using the old strings to cut the slot you must angle the slot to the same angle as the headstock so the strings will lay properly. After you have started to cut the slots tighten up the new strings to see what the depth of the new slot is. This procedure is going to take some time so be prepared to have a little time set aside. One way to check the height of the string is to use the new string itself. When the string is in the slot tighten to proper tension (or in tune) push the string down between the second and the third fret. Now check the string height at the first fret. Some people like it so the string almost but does not touch the first fret, me I personally go for about 5 thousands of an inch. Now do this for all the strings and you almost have a working nut. Next we must check how far down in the nut the string is laying. Remember a nut that is too tall can cause buzzing also. Only about half of the string should be visible above the nut, so if less than 1/2 the string width is above the nut slot you must lower the height of the nut. Now get out your eraser and sand paper. Wrap the sand paper around the eraser and get ready to sand. Remove all the strings from the slots and very carefully sand down the top of the nut so only 1/2 of the string is above the top of the nut, this way the string cannot vibrate against the side of the nut slot. Do not sand too much off other wise the string will pop out of the string slot. Congratulations you have just repaired your old nut so you can get by until you can get a new one.

If you do want a new nut, which is preferable, you must get a few measurements. The width of you neck, the height of the nut, the width of your strings (high E to low E) gauge of strings you will be using, brand of guitar (a Gibson nut, a Fender nut and a Martin nut are all different) and the width of your nut . These are just a few. Now if you want to cut your own nut from raw material you will need many expensive tools, nut files, feeler gauges, micromiter, nut slot files, sand paper, buffer and a few other tools, so if you want a hand made bone nut go to a person that does it for a living and tell them what you want and they will make your guitar play better. A guitar nut is a very important part of the proper set up and sound of a guitar so if your nut is beyond repair, see your local repair person and if you don't have a local repair person feel free to drop me a line or call me I will help you fix or find a person near by were you live that is capable of repairing your guitar.

Until next time
Keep the toes tappin and the fingers dancin
Greg/Doc
The Guitar ER
2nd Floor Crazyhorse Guitars
24th and Univ.
Des Moines IA 50311
1-515-707-4878
greg@theguitarer.com