I did a little more work on my project this morning. The first job was widening the holes for the tuners, as the new tuners don't exactly fit the existing holes. I used a round file and just took it slowly, as I know the tuners need to be a reasonably sung fit, so didn't want to overdo it:
Then I rough-shaped the nut, using a pencil (sanded in half) to mark where to cut, and a razor saw to make the cut just at the top of my pencil line:
I then used a rasp to smooth where I'd cut and round off the back edge a little. Here is a pic with the nut and tuners in position, though not fixed yet:
I'm not totally sure I haven't taken too much off the nut, as it was difficult to be precise with the cut, so I'll try fitting the tailpiece and bridge tomorrow and putting a couple of strings on to get some idea of how the set up is starting to look. But if I have taken too much off, I'm not going to worry, I'll head back to the shop for a new nut blank and start again! It's all part of the learning experience, and I confess I'm enjoying it probably more than I should
Fliss