Warmoth nut slotting?

[rolloman]

I built a neck on the Warmoth website and ordered it. Will it come with the nut filed?  I did not see anything on the building steps other than picking the nut material.

 

[bagman67]

There will be slots cut, but they will not be fully finished - you'll want to have the nut filed to suit your string gauge and playing style.

 

[rolloman]

Thanks. Im with ya on the the slots width for string guages, but not playing style. I play blues, rockabilly and classic rock. Do you mean how much meat is left for the string to rest on before angling the nut slot down towards the tuners, or the depth of the slots for different styles. Or something different?

If I was to get files to work on already slotted nut what would be recommended. I looked at these but wow, very expensive!
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Nuts,_saddles/Special_tools_for:_Nuts_and_saddles/Double-edge_Nut_Files.html

Hoping I could get the final work done with these instead. http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Files/Needle_Files.html

 

[Cagey]

Nut slotting files are expensive no matter where you go. Expect to spend at least $100. If you're not going to do a lot of that work, you're probably better off taking the instrument to a tech. They rarely charge more than $25 for a whole new nut.

Those needle files won't work. You'll ruin the nut, and still have to spend the $25 to get a new one.

 

[sixstringsamurai]

unless you are planning on using fence wire, the factory cut Graph tech's need nothing out of the box with a standard set of tens.

YMMV depending on what gauge you use.

 

[rolloman]

I visited graph tech site. They have 4 measurements you do on your guitar in order to buy the correct nut. The radius of the fretboard is not one of the items they need. Seems like they would want that in order to get the slot depths closer to what is needed. I have fender with 12" radius. If any of the strings end up being too low, would there be anything wrong with shimming the whole nut upwards then fine tuning the slot depths?  Graph Tech recommends folding a piece of 400 grit and using it to adjust the slot depths. Cheaper than files thats for sure.

 

[sixstringsamurai]

The Quality that comes out of their shops is second to none.
Both necks I purchased were slotted, radius correctly and went together Flawlessly, I had no clean up or adjusting to do at all.

Warmoth is on point.

Just go build and order what you want and that is what you'll get, and if there is anything special you need tweaked, give em a call, their crew is knowledgeable, and will give you a straight answer on what they can/cannot do.

 

[Cagey]

I visited graph tech site. They have 4 measurements you do on your guitar in order to buy the correct nut. The radius of the fretboard is not one of the items they need. Seems like they would want that in order to get the slot depths closer to what is needed. I have fender with 12" radius. If any of the strings end up being too low, would there be anything wrong with shimming the whole nut upwards then fine tuning the slot depths?  Graph Tech recommends folding a piece of 400 grit and using it to adjust the slot depths. Cheaper than files thats for sure.

The string slot depths are not cut so close that they would need to know the radius. That's a final setup consideration. The nut itself is going to be so tall you'll need to lower it by removing material from the bottom to get it reasonably close before installation, then you fine-tune the slots at that point.

 

[stubhead]

Doing nut work is actually one of the easiest things to do wrong and there's a definite learning curve to it. Even after 30 years of them, I WOULD NOT want to tear into a single one without having a spare behind it. The largest issue is that it's stupendously easy to cut too deep. I have actually used the folded-sandpaper thing a lot, or wrap a steel nail file with sandpaper. BUT BUT BUT - you really have to be able to SEE exactly what you're doing, and figure out how fast and with what kind of pressure your chosen tools will cut bone.

There are actual books about this stuff... there's also enough good information online for someone who has experience in thinking really, really small. I mean, this will do it:
http://www.lutherie.net/nuts.html

But if you look at how big the drawings are blown up, you have to see the stuff, and you need to be able to work in increments that are about one-quarter to one-fifth of the thickness of your high E string. This saw:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Zona-24-TPI-Deluxe-Universal-Razor-Saw-ZON35560-/360839307764?pt=Model_Kit_US&hash=item5403b2e1f4

and a pippen file are all you really NEED to do it, you can get them together here (great place, BTW):

http://www.lmii.com/products/tools-services/knives-saws/zona-saw
http://www.lmii.com/products/tools-services/rasps/files/pippin-file

But I just routinely grab my "nut kit" that probably has 8 or 10 files and saws, and I know what they all do. The pippen file is continuously curved, so you have to use it just right (a cheap micrometer here to compare string to slot is a godsend). And rather than buy Dan Erlewine's nut and saddle book, for just a little bit more you can get his "Complete Guitar Repair V.3" for $25 or so, and you will use things from it the rest of your life.

Org, KG - what do we do here?

 

[sixstringsamurai]

Am I missing out on something? :icon_scratch:

Because I didn't do anything above and beyond what they did in shop on either of mine.
:dontknow:

 

[bagman67]

What Warmoth provides will be perfectly acceptable to many players - but it should not be confused for attentive custom work for a specific individual.

 

[rolloman]

Am I missing out on something? :icon_scratch:

Because I didn't do anything above and beyond what they did in shop on either of mine.
:dontknow:

It would only be a concern if later down the road I was to change to the Graph Tech XL nut myself instead of using the White Corian that I ordered on the neck. Wonder if the nut is put in at the end of the Warmoth build. Maybe it wouldn't be too late to request this change.

 

[Tony Ounsworth]

I've only bought one Warmoth neck, and the nut is cut high. Consequently notes played at the first few frets read quite sharp on the tuner, and it's very easy to "bend" the strings out of tune. I use 9-46 hybrids.

At first I was disappointed, but it actually makes total sense for them to leave it that way - far easier to take material away than to add it! All it means is that I'll need to get it filed, which is fine as I'm taking the guitar to be Plekked soon anyway.

It's a similar thing with the frets. They are expertly installed, but they're not finished. Again, all part of final setup.

 

[sixstringsamurai]

What Warmoth provides will be perfectly acceptable to many players - but it should not be confused for attentive custom work for a specific individual.

Fair enough, I've played off the rack stuff most of my life.
So what I got I saw as outstanding, other than smoothing the fret ends slightly, I bolted em' on and played

 

[stubhead]

Technically speaking, there's no reason that the nut should be any higher than a fret - in fact there are many good guitars built with what's called a "zero fret" which is leveled and polished in the same operation as the rest of them, and the nut is behind it and only maintains the string spacing. However, most people like to have a nut because they do want certain strings to be handled differently. The low E string tends to buzz more and go sharp when you whack it, so many people cut that slot a little bit high and tune that string a little bit low. And by a little bit I do mean like 0.005" to 0.010" - no more than the thickness of the high E, and tune it maybe 4 cents low. And the unwound G's normally on electrics play way different than the wound G's usually on acoustics, so that can be treated in different ways, and if you play slide a lot there are some other compromises to try.

 

[rolloman]

Seems like the strings would be touching the first and second, frets also or close enough to buzz off off those frets?

 

[Cagey]

When you think about it, if that were true, then any string would buzz on the fret following the actual note fretted. But, the string is slightly angled up to the bridge relative to the plane of the fretboard, which itself is slightly concave. So, unless there's a high fret breaking the geometry, there's always just a bit of clearance of the frets following the fretted note.

 

[guitartom]

What Warmoth provides will be perfectly acceptable to many players - but it should not be confused for attentive custom work for a specific individual.

Fair enough, I've played off the rack stuff most of my life.
So what I got I saw as outstanding, other than smoothing the fret ends slightly, I bolted em' on and played

Me too - I found that my new warmoth necks played nice enough not to have to mess with them.  I have bought 2 used that were given a custom treatment.  I like the rolled fretboard, but I don't play with the action low enough to notice any fret height issues.

 

[rolloman]

When you think about it, if that were true, then any string would buzz on the fret following the actual note fretted. But, the string is slightly angled up to the bridge relative to the plane of the fretboard, which itself is slightly concave. So, unless there's a high fret breaking the geometry, there's always just a bit of clearance of the frets following the fretted note.

 
Yep, you are right about that.

 

[stubhead]

There are just so many guitars to be sold and so many guitarists to be seduced with silken-tonged prose that certain words & concepts become almost completely untethered from conventional, boring ol' meanings. And if a certain advertising trickum's seems to take hold and bite, sometimes it seems like everybody has to pimp up their exact same superiority to everyone else's exact same superiority. Thin necks begat thinner necks begat popsicle stick necks, tone be damned. Except everyone's got classic "vintage tone." Like the theme from the Beverly Hillbillies? "Winchester Cathedral?" In the mid-to-late 1980's Ibanez staked out a claim in heavy metal and then nailed it down through the 90's, and more power to 'em! But I think thin->thinner->thinner necks was ephemeral and the big slice they (and Yamaha) snorfed was because they were shipping guitars to stores with at least a 3/4-assed tidying up on the frets. This at a time when Gibson & Fender were intentionally shipping their best guitars with NO fret work or setup done at all, knowing that the customer would get that done. But as the box stores and mail-order biz began peeling off customers from mom&pop, nobody told the customers about this. So you could open up the Fender box to your brand-new, totally-unplayable Strat, or buy an Ibanez for half the price that worked.

And action and "buzzing" became it's own little hypey war, with fairly ridiculous results. leaping sideways here, Carvin's factory specs used to claim 1/16th of an inch action at the 12th fret, with NO buzz...  :icon_scratch:

AS LONG AS YOU DON'T PLAY IT!  :laughing7: :laughing11: :laughing3: WOO HOO, HARDY-harde-har. :laughing3: :laughing11: :laughing7:

Even to this day, Fender's suggested specs are goofed. You can Plek the stuffing out of a neck, or splurge on a extra-supurber-than-supurb Mike Lipe or Dan Erlewine or Joe Glaser level-crown 'n' polish for $300 (for McLaughlin/Gilbert/Paisley/Bonamassa/etc. this is just routine if they're not playing some premiumly-tweaked signature axe) AND: set it to Fender factory specs - bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... Fender themselves don't even ship them like that, it starts out high and if you adjust it, the buzzzzzzzz is all your fault. And with my own two orbs, I have seen an educated, literate, pretty-damn-good guitarist pick up his new sugarbombe, play a few licks - bzzz, bzzzuzzz, bzzZZT..RRRZZZzz! and say, "See? No buzzing either!"  :dontknow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_FhryR1QgE
<--(Mahavishnu John McLaughlin's first American presence, circa 1966. Tone to the bone? :icon_thumright: )