Stew Mac's Nut Making tool kit : Any available alternatives out there ?

Hello DIY

I am shopping for some tools at the moment, tools to work with bone and such to make guitar nuts and bridges.

Steward MacDonald offers a kit that looks pretty nice. Here's what I am talking about :

"Essential Nut Making Tool Kit"

The kit pretty much includes everything I want but I was wondering if there were any alternatives on the market for such tools - perhaps less expensive or readily-available at my local hardware store. I've heard of torch tip cleaning files but I would prefer "real" gauged nut files.

Your advice and opinions are welcome, thank you for reading

- Mackin

A much cheaper alternative is the Norman nut files. The kit includes a string spacing chart & basic instructions. I got mine on Ebay for less than 60 bucks. they work adequately if you don't get in a hurry. As far as the nut vice, use your bench vice & 2 blocks of hard wood.

In addition to customtele's suggestions, feeler guages can be had at harware stores and Harbor frieght that have many more widths, and for less than $10.

String spacing can easily be done by eye, feel, or by making your own rule. If you have a set of calipers pretty easy to figure out. There's no magic to the spacing. It just accounts for the different string widths and sets the space between strings equally, not center to center. You can also use an old nut as a template and just use that for the spacing.

For nut files, I have a set from warmoth that works pretty well, or you could try customtele's suggestion. I've heard those work well from several knowledgeable people here on the forum.

The nut shaping files are just small flat files. You can get something to do the job at a hardware store for about $5. I use an aggressive bastard file for rough shaping and finish it off with sandpaper.

Here's a couple links I found helpful.

http://frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/Setup/NewNut/newnut1.html

http://frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Tools/NutRule/nutrule.html

Best advice I can give after doing a few myself is to go slow. Slowly bring the heights of the slots down and don't get to aggressive with your strokes. A nut can be trashed in half a stroke of a slotting file if you aren't careful. And pay very close attention to your cutting angle.

Wow, that's a lot of information !

Thank you very much guys, I appreciate your help a lot

Sometimes you have to use a more aggressive file, unless you want to be at it all day. Same goes for any instance where you're removing wood from the fretboard, like you have to do when installing some types of nuts. It's hard to get anywhere with a real fine finish-type file when you have to remove 1/8" of a hardwood. Go to the finer file when you know you're already in the ballpark of where you need to be as far as the height and shape of the nut, then the sandpaper to finish it off, depending on how finnicky you are about the cosmetics. Often what you put into it, as far as detail, pays off with the appearance and function, just like any other craft-work.

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^^^ Well said. A lot of DIY'ers do it because quality is lacking in store bought products. How many off the rack guitars have you seen that need nut work?

After some intense googling and reflection, I have my mind made up about one thing - I definitely don't want to go cheap.

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Like some dude wrote on another forum, "you only have to buy these once, so it's not that bad at all...".

On another note, I read many replies about how the StewMac files cut a V shape notch instead of a U shape. That seems absurd, any comments on that ?

Thank you for the replies

Using V shaped files on the top three strings can be a good thing. It makes it easier to ensure that the string won't bind because it opens up the slot a bit towards the top of the nut. The important part is having the bottom of the nut slot the same radius, or slightly larger, than the radius of the string. Both types will get the job done though and work just fine. The technique is just a bit different.

Oh yeah, don't forget about preslotted nuts. You'll still need to tweak the slot heights and mess with the shaping a bit, but IMO it's a good place to start learning. Order a couple extra because you may screw up the first one you try. I sure did, a couple times. And that way, you don't have the time invested in cutting and shaping from a blank just to screw up a slot in under 30 seconds. To me the slotting is the hardest part and the part that takes the most finesse. Learn that first and then move on to cutting and shaping from blanks.

I agree one hundred percent with customtele about the right out of the store nuts... they need work about 50% of the time, which kills me when I look at a guitar that is suppose to be fully set-up and I have to do major nut work to...

MrBrown hit it on the head with the 30ec. kill of a great shapped nut. I was slotting a nut down the other day and my one dog bumped my leg, yea gouge city to the high E slot.... Damn dogs....

You can get a percision file kit at Sears for $8US and the other recommended (which I've never tried but someone I spoke to uses this) is a blow torch tip cleaner set to file the grooves. So you'd use both sets. I use the file set for fret ends and shaping graphite/tusq premade nuts to width and size.... I can only say this is a real cheap approach.

The Norman files do cut a U shaped notch. I've used these for 2 nuts and they work well. You do have to stop & clean the bone dust out as they load up. But I can see these lasting the rest of my life. The torch tip cleaners work but take forever. I used to use needle files to start & finish up with torch tip cleaners. But the time I saved with the proper nut files made them worth it. I did 2 guitars in less time than it used to take to do one.

That's good to know, thanks

Regarding the Stew Mac files and their V cut,

can I still cut a slot that will have a U shaped-bottom, given the used file is of the proper gauge ?

(I can't see why one couldn't, but I'm just asking )

EDIT : Pic from Stew Mac

Thanks a lot for the replies everyone, very appreciated

I don't have any experience with the Stew Mac files. I'm too much of a cheap b@$t@%d. My guess is you could cut almost to the correct depth with these & finish with the torch tip cleaners to eliminate the V.

At that price, I hope the StewMac files don't need any extra help to finish the job

With the stewmac files you can get the U shape you want at the bottom with out anything else. You just have to be gentle and patient and you will get a great U shapped seat for you strings

These look more like the Norman files :

Gauged Nut Slotting Files

When I bought a Megatar, I noticed that the nut slots were like a slightly rotated V. One side perpendicular to the neck plane and the other angled somewhat. Seemed to work fine.

I find nut making very difficult. In the past I used files which seemed to take forever with the bone or Micarta. Then I used a hacksaw to get things moving, but a couple slots were a little wide. Lately I have made a couple of bamboo nuts which seem to work fine. Bamboo is much easier / faster to work with, but probably robs some sustain for open notes. For tapping style guitars, there usually are no open notes, so it is not as much a concern.

Just do a search on StewMac's website, "Gauged nut slotting files".