"Swappable" Nut
 

A colleague of mine recently got a new nut made for his instrument to accommodate plain gut strings for period music. He has one instrument and needs to have different gauged nut-slots for when he uses plain gut and steel, so he has several "nuts" for different settings. He informed me that his "nuts" are never glued down to the scroll, and that the strings just hold the nut in place. Is this a common practice performed by respected luthiers and players alike?

Cheers

When I come to replane a fingerboard, I love it when the nut just pops off without heat, steam or blades ... so I never glue a nut in place unless specifically asked to, and even then only with the faintest dab of weak hide glue. The strings hold it in place just fine with the string pressure. Sure it'll fall off if you take ALL the strings off, but no damage done and its easy to put back. Under normal use, just change one string at a time is the best way anyway.

I would not screw a nut in place, its just unnecessary work!

... and I have never had a nut move at all during playing, even though they are unglued

Interesting! Thanks for the comments. I'm not about to go and put my "nuts" in a vice, I was just curious if people leave them un-glued.

your Nuts.. (not, you're nuts!.. well.. who knows.. lol)
 

I have re-cut Nuts for Evah's, Oliv's and Gut's in the past and then went back to regular Flexocors with no problem. Maybe I was lucky but having used a Rat-tail File for about 40 years now, it's second nature to me. I have cut 100s of Nuts for our hand made Electric basses from brass and tweaked maybe 20% of the nearly 6,000 we made. I have also worked with composite Nut material as well as making and tweaking plenty of Double Bass Ebony Nuts.

The string will grab the Nut if the slot is angled properly. If you think you need two or more Nuts made then use a weaker glue than hide and 'spot' glue them in place. They will pop out easily but not by accident unless a long time has passed. If not glued and the Nut falls to a hard floor, it can crack or chip. Ebony is not all that flexible.

I think for weaker gluing of a Nut, try regular Elmers white School glue. It wont hurt anything. The oily ebony will prevent pore penetration and it comes off easily. It will hold the Nut wile stringing.

On all of my C-Extension I use this Glue for the Small top nut to keep it in place. They often fall out when changing strings and on one Gig, it flew off somehow and only noticed the next day. I made a new one and from that day on glued in all of my others as I re-strung them.

Very interesting, thanks Ken. I'm wondering when luthiers and players started using ebony mainly for nuts? I've seen a lot of instruments that have ivory or some type of "bone" nut.

ivory or some type of "bone" nut..
 

Ivory or some type of "bone" nut on Double Basses you mean?

you'd need a very big animal to provide enough bone for a double bass nut.

Here's a photo of an instrument attributed to Goffriller from the Cite de la Musique in Paris. This looks like an ivory nut?

ok..
 

I have seen a few pictured only but I wanted to make sure. On that bass above, any more pictures you can show of it?

Hi Ken, sure, here's another photo. It may even be a Busan or Montagnana. It seems that they have no real record at the Cite de le Musique.

You might try Corian. I haven't tried it, but I know violinmakers who use it. The sample piece you can get for free from Home Depot might be big enough.