Michael Barnes I love it.. the most recent upgrade is to use one of those giant builders pencils, the lead is huge and won't fall out if you plane the side down :)
Yeah they work well....just easier to get hold of regular pencils....if you plane the regular pencil just shy of half way then the lead won't fall out....just use half a pencil length at a time and use the other half for regular pencil use ...economise haha
your tip....people have been using that method for eons... Iv no doubt you seen somebody on TDPRI or LpF using it ..... Ben there is no shame in using another brand tool. Everytime you use a tool you tell us how you are making your own ver or are in development in making a crimson ver of said tool. it starting to become a joke. Your not in competition with stew mac, stu macs been running for years and years. They have a hefty foot hold and are the best luthier supplier in the world. You have already got a name for taking ages to furfill orders. dont make a rod for your back dude.
Joe Szabo I never claimed to have invented it... practically anything you can think if has been done already, it just may not be well known. The same is true of changes made to techniques, someone, somewhere has likely already done it. I didn't pick it up from whatever those places you mentioned are. ..I saw it used in another woodworking application and saw that it could be used for this. If other people were already using it for guitars then that's good for them.. I clearly meant 'my tip' as in I passed it on to him.
On open grain fret boards linseed is good to seal it and offers some level of protection for a while. I use lemon oil sometimes as well depending on the type of wood the board is and whether or not it has finish on it.
I like your techniques -- with the thumb nail, really nice. I've just recently bought a couple of Chinese Les Paul's and "they need some work" for sure. Thanks
Ben, a thing I learned from a great Tech in NYC. (I've been doing it for some time). I bend the string at the post and wiggle up and down real fast and the string breaks right at the eye of the post.
I use bore oil on my rosewood fretboards. Same stuff used on woodwind instruments like Clarinets to hydrate wood. Works well in my experience. I recommend it.
The slot depth is the other half of setting intonation. You shouldn't cut the slots to "feel" or a line drawn on the nut, it should be cut the depth required to set the intonation right per string. The pencil guideline is good so you don't go too deep because if you do it's game over but if you don't go deep enough you'll find the lower frets pitching sharp because you've put an angle on the string length from nut to saddle which increases the scale length on the open and shortens back to normal length when fretting. Virtually every guitar out of the factory lacks the correct nut slot depth because it's risky to get it spot on and requires a lot of work, but it's so worth it when it's spot on. Forget tone chasing, get your notes ringing right!
Great tutorial on the nut slot angle. Perhaps viewers here know the history on why lemon oil is so reviered for wetting rosewood fingerboards while maple fingerboards are often "laquered". I had heard rosewood was used by Fender after he saw worn maple neck guitars on television and he didn't like how they looked 'dirty'. Oiling allows reapplying rather than refinishing so maybe that is the source?
Fantastic video thanks... I redid my SG after watching your tutorial, it went well. Now I have a question... I am thinking about buying a Chapman guitar which come standard with stainless steel frets, how difficult it would be to level them if I need to? Also as a luthier would you recommended a Chapman guitar? Many thanks.
Regarding finger board conditioners I have had plenty of success with leather balsam(bees wax + solvent). The idea is after cleaning put on a very small amount and get as much back off as possible.
Great tips as always. I do like it so much better when a real expert such as yourself stays out of the objectivity trap and goes out on a firm limb with his/her opinions, approaches, preferences. One niggling little thing I noticed was something that I've been seeing more frequently of late, whereas I almost never saw it before in my 30 years of playing and changing strings: corroded strings right out of the packet, doomed to dying and/or breaking prematurely or just not feeling nice to the touch. The high E (third fret) on your clip was yet another case in point. (Were they Ernie Ball's out of curiosity? EB's are still my favourite electrics for donkey's years, but I've recently broken with Markley acoustics because of corrosion issues). Wonder what's up with the manufacturers, or whatever. I don't think it's the shops because most of the big manufacturers have turned to vacuum packaging by now, but who knows? Hopefully it's not all getting farmed out to China.
Thank you! I agree, I've been seeing a lot of new strings come out of the packet corroded.. quite often clients will bring their own strings for us to use so I assume that they're old.. but it does seem to be happening more and more and s a worrying trend!
If I may ask a quick dumb-ish question please, Ben . . I'm attempting to draw up the neck and body profile of the bass I'm attempting to make, in the same fashion that you expertly did on guitar builders basics NO4. . . this is to see whether I need neck angle or not . . should I be taking into account - theheight of new frets, the height of the string above the frets, and even , I guess, the thickness of bass strings , as I draw this profile out ? . . or is that being a touch "over the top"? . . . I just dont want to attempt this, and NOT take these slight factors into consideration, and possibly miscalculate the angle.. . . and thank you kindly for all the tremendous information you provide , its greatly appreciated.. . .cheers , Chris
No worries, yes fret height and fretboard should be taken into consideration but only worry about the bottom of the strings. I will be shooting a video dedicated to this soon and will draw the whole thing out on camera.. Thanks for your support!
where can i buy the file? what do you call it? are those file exclusive only in music stores? i bought a 12/6 double neck electric guitar (cheap guitar). i read the comments about the guitar brand that you need to adjust the bridge and fine tune it to get a good sound. the nut on 6 string neck is too high that i could notpress any strings on 1st fret. on the 12 string neck, the nut has barely slot on it. that's why i need the file to fix it. thanks so much
In your seartch for a fingerboard oil, have you considered almond oil? I've been using it on my guitars for over two years now, and find it works well, and it is a natural pure oil for wood. Not expensive, and available from health food shops...
I don't quite get how using feeler gauges equates to using the nut file flat, ie parallel to the fretboard ? Who are these people who claim this is the way to cut a nut slot ? I have never come across anybody who advocates using the file flat. I use feeler gauges stacked to the height of the first fret, plus a few thou, and use the nut file at an angle ( the angle is the bisection of whatever the angle is to the relevant hole in each tuning post.... it's different for each string). As soon as the file touches the feeler gauge, I know I'm done, and that the slot is almost perfect ... I know I haven't gone too low and I know that the highest point is right where I want it. Admittedly the very last strokes of the file are accomplished by feel, but using the feeler gauges gets you there a damn sight faster than marking the nut with a pencil and eyeballing the depth.
Really great camera work on this video and your presentation is great! I loved the shot with the fretboard/headstock in profile, so easy to see the angles of the nut file you were talking about. I'm curious, did you ever try olive oil for conditioning the fretboard. I've used it, only since it's typically in my kitchen, and it works really well.
Tried & True makes a boiled linseed oil and bees wax finish that I use on my fret boards (and acoustic guitars) linseed oil is better then mineral oil because it hardens as it cures and gives a little extra protection and the bees wax makes the surface less sticky.
Absolutely wonderful series of videos !! I realized last night my Low E nut slot is the reason for all the darn buzzing on my Les Paul Studio Lite. I have a Graphite nut installed. Can I use super glue and graphite dust from an old graphite nut to repair this slot in the same way you did with the glue and bone dust ? Thanks and have a great day. :-)
While on the subject of nuts, I remember your vid on the guitar with the um... intonated frets (True Temperament?), and now I'm trying to remember if I'd ever seen an intonated nut. Have you ever seen such a thing? Would you ever consider trying such a thing?
You mentioned that you are looking into building your own Nut Slotting tools. One thing I would like to see them incorporate after watching you use the ones from Stew Mac is a color coding system. It could be a different color handle or an inlay in the handle. Something that would allow you to quickly pick out the correct size without having to look really close to see the engraved size. homeelectrical.webs.com/photos/electrical-tols/NutDriverInch.jpg
That's a great idea! For now we're writing the gauge on the end of the handle, and since we're only using one gauge per handle it will speed up the selection process.. Now to think how to add the colour coding...
To many tools and stuff all around that very expensive instrument. Your just asking for a serious accident to happen. be it a ding or a scratch a spill or a break. All possible with that much junk all around the guitar. Just go to 8.04 and look around the shot. its scary.... O yea how about when your doing the nut slot fretting the 2nd fret and getting it as low as possible without touching, that gives for the lowest action from the nut side ? a hairs width is possible.
Incredible standard of work and a genuine pleasure to watch a true craftsman enjoying his trade.
Nice to see that you actually use my tip for the pencil split down the middle. It really works well doesn't it.
Michael Barnes I love it.. the most recent upgrade is to use one of those giant builders pencils, the lead is huge and won't fall out if you plane the side down :)
Yeah they work well....just easier to get hold of regular pencils....if you plane the regular pencil just shy of half way then the lead won't fall out....just use half a pencil length at a time and use the other half for regular pencil use ...economise haha
your tip....people have been using that method for eons... Iv no doubt you seen somebody on TDPRI or LpF using it ..... Ben there is no shame in using another brand tool. Everytime you use a tool you tell us how you are making your own ver or are in development in making a crimson ver of said tool. it starting to become a joke. Your not in competition with stew mac, stu macs been running for years and years. They have a hefty foot hold and are the best luthier supplier in the world. You have already got a name for taking ages to furfill orders. dont make a rod for your back dude.
Joe Szabo I never claimed to have invented it... practically anything you can think if has been done already, it just may not be well known. The same is true of changes made to techniques, someone, somewhere has likely already done it. I didn't pick it up from whatever those places you mentioned are. ..I saw it used in another woodworking application and saw that it could be used for this. If other people were already using it for guitars then that's good for them.. I clearly meant 'my tip' as in I passed it on to him.
Aaaah I do love watching Crimson Guitars videos. :)
Ben you are a fricking legend dude, one day I will be having a guitar made by you.
Isn't it great to revitalize a guitar like that? Saving even that butchered nut. Well done.
Would have liked to hear how it played before/during/after.
Lovely video, I really liked these 3
Consider yourself accosted to make more of these
On open grain fret boards linseed is good to seal it and offers some level of protection for a while. I use lemon oil sometimes as well depending on the type of wood the board is and whether or not it has finish on it.
vintage amber nitro with a q-tip and light polish would make it look like it was never touched... lovely work!!
Always just linseed oil for open grain wood fretboards. A couple of drops, rub it on, immediately rub excess off.
I like your techniques -- with the thumb nail, really nice. I've just recently bought a couple of Chinese Les Paul's and "they need some work" for sure. Thanks
Ben, a thing I learned from a great Tech in NYC. (I've been doing it for some time). I bend the string at the post and wiggle up and down real fast and the string breaks right at the eye of the post.
I use bore oil on my rosewood fretboards. Same stuff used on woodwind instruments like Clarinets to hydrate wood. Works well in my experience. I recommend it.
The slot depth is the other half of setting intonation. You shouldn't cut the slots to "feel" or a line drawn on the nut, it should be cut the depth required to set the intonation right per string. The pencil guideline is good so you don't go too deep because if you do it's game over but if you don't go deep enough you'll find the lower frets pitching sharp because you've put an angle on the string length from nut to saddle which increases the scale length on the open and shortens back to normal length when fretting. Virtually every guitar out of the factory lacks the correct nut slot depth because it's risky to get it spot on and requires a lot of work, but it's so worth it when it's spot on. Forget tone chasing, get your notes ringing right!
Great tutorial on the nut slot angle. Perhaps viewers here know the history on why lemon oil is so reviered for wetting rosewood fingerboards while maple fingerboards are often "laquered". I had heard rosewood was used by Fender after he saw worn maple neck guitars on television and he didn't like how they looked 'dirty'. Oiling allows reapplying rather than refinishing so maybe that is the source?
Fantastic video thanks... I redid my SG after watching your tutorial, it went well. Now I have a question... I am thinking about buying a Chapman guitar which come standard with stainless steel frets, how difficult it would be to level them if I need to? Also as a luthier would you recommended a Chapman guitar? Many thanks.
Should the bottom of the nut slot be essentially the same height off the fingerboard as the top of the 1st fret?
Another great informative video. I have a Furch guitar that has a zero fret and no actual nut - would the process be the same?
Regarding finger board conditioners I have had plenty of success with leather balsam(bees wax + solvent). The idea is after cleaning put on a very small amount and get as much back off as possible.
Great tips as always. I do like it so much better when a real expert such as yourself stays out of the objectivity trap and goes out on a firm limb with his/her opinions, approaches, preferences.
One niggling little thing I noticed was something that I've been seeing more frequently of late, whereas I almost never saw it before in my 30 years of playing and changing strings: corroded strings right out of the packet, doomed to dying and/or breaking prematurely or just not feeling nice to the touch. The high E (third fret) on your clip was yet another case in point. (Were they Ernie Ball's out of curiosity? EB's are still my favourite electrics for donkey's years, but I've recently broken with Markley acoustics because of corrosion issues). Wonder what's up with the manufacturers, or whatever. I don't think it's the shops because most of the big manufacturers have turned to vacuum packaging by now, but who knows? Hopefully it's not all getting farmed out to China.
Thank you! I agree, I've been seeing a lot of new strings come out of the packet corroded.. quite often clients will bring their own strings for us to use so I assume that they're old.. but it does seem to be happening more and more and s a worrying trend!
If I may ask a quick dumb-ish question please, Ben . . I'm attempting to draw up the neck and body profile of the bass I'm attempting to make, in the same fashion that you expertly did on guitar builders basics NO4. . . this is to see whether I need neck angle or not . . should I be taking into account - theheight of new frets, the height of the string above the frets, and even , I guess, the thickness of bass strings , as I draw this profile out ? . . or is that being a touch "over the top"? . . . I just dont want to attempt this, and NOT take these slight factors into consideration, and possibly miscalculate the angle.. . . and thank you kindly for all the tremendous information you provide , its greatly appreciated.. . .cheers , Chris
No worries, yes fret height and fretboard should be taken into consideration but only worry about the bottom of the strings. I will be shooting a video dedicated to this soon and will draw the whole thing out on camera.. Thanks for your support!
where can i buy the file? what do you call it? are those file exclusive only in music stores? i bought a 12/6 double neck electric guitar (cheap guitar). i read the comments about the guitar brand that you need to adjust the bridge and fine tune it to get a good sound. the nut on 6 string neck is too high that i could notpress any strings on 1st fret. on the 12 string neck, the nut has barely slot on it. that's why i need the file to fix it. thanks so much
How did you chop the pencil in half ? Sand it along a beam ?
In your seartch for a fingerboard oil, have you considered almond oil? I've been using it on my guitars for over two years now, and find it works well, and it is a natural pure oil for wood. Not expensive, and available from health food shops...
How did you go about chopping that pencil in half?
I suspect that he actually didn't split a pencil, but just wasted half a pencil away on a table sander.
I don't quite get how using feeler gauges equates to using the nut file flat, ie parallel to the fretboard ? Who are these people who claim this is the way to cut a nut slot ? I have never come across anybody who advocates using the file flat.
I use feeler gauges stacked to the height of the first fret, plus a few thou, and use the nut file at an angle ( the angle is the bisection of whatever the angle is to the relevant hole in each tuning post.... it's different for each string). As soon as the file touches the feeler gauge, I know I'm done, and that the slot is almost perfect ... I know I haven't gone too low and I know that the highest point is right where I want it.
Admittedly the very last strokes of the file are accomplished by feel, but using the feeler gauges gets you there a damn sight faster than marking the nut with a pencil and eyeballing the depth.
Really great camera work on this video and your presentation is great! I loved the shot with the fretboard/headstock in profile, so easy to see the angles of the nut file you were talking about.
I'm curious, did you ever try olive oil for conditioning the fretboard. I've used it, only since it's typically in my kitchen, and it works really well.
it'll get rancid
Is there any safe way to cut the slots on the nut without a specific tool?
Can you use isopropyl instead of lighter fluid?
Good stuff. Thanks for these uploads.
Our pleasure, thank you for watching!
Tried & True makes a boiled linseed oil and bees wax finish that I use on my fret boards (and acoustic guitars) linseed oil is better then mineral oil because it hardens as it cures and gives a little extra protection and the bees wax makes the surface less sticky.
Absolutely wonderful series of videos !! I realized last night my Low E nut slot is the reason for all the darn buzzing on my Les Paul Studio Lite. I have a Graphite nut installed. Can I use super glue and graphite dust from an old graphite nut to repair this slot in the same way you did with the glue and bone dust ? Thanks and have a great day. :-)
RikkardJ Smith yes, yes you can :)
You should try cooking oil, it works really good for rehidratating fretboards.
Great show.
While on the subject of nuts, I remember your vid on the guitar with the um... intonated frets (True Temperament?), and now I'm trying to remember if I'd ever seen an intonated nut. Have you ever seen such a thing? Would you ever consider trying such a thing?
I have tried it and it does seem to work, though the math is beyond me tbh. The buzz feiton system has an adjusted nut too..
You mentioned that you are looking into building your own Nut Slotting tools. One thing I would like to see them incorporate after watching you use the ones from Stew Mac is a color coding system.
It could be a different color handle or an inlay in the handle. Something that would allow you to quickly pick out the correct size without having to look really close to see the engraved size.
homeelectrical.webs.com/photos/electrical-tols/NutDriverInch.jpg
That's a great idea! For now we're writing the gauge on the end of the handle, and since we're only using one gauge per handle it will speed up the selection process.. Now to think how to add the colour coding...
What do you think about linseed oil to hydrate the fretboard? Cheers. Nice videos.
5:26 Ouch!
perfect... i liket it....!!!good job...!!!!!!
Interesting video..thanks......
Bore oil!!! experiment with that too!
Shoot-- I would NOT put lighter fluid on a plastic scratchplate !
wait, so can i use acetona instead of Naphta to clean the fretboard?
linseed oil only!
You Are Bad To The Bone! Thanks
To many tools and stuff all around that very expensive instrument. Your just asking for a serious accident to happen. be it a ding or a scratch a spill or a break. All possible with that much junk all around the guitar. Just go to 8.04 and look around the shot. its scary.... O yea how about when your doing the nut slot fretting the 2nd fret and getting it as low as possible without touching, that gives for the lowest action from the nut side ? a hairs width is possible.