Quote:
Originally Posted by pieterh
Yamahaguy is spot on - strings sticking in the nut slots can be a pain, especially on electrics, even more so with whammy bars!
A bit of lubrication for the slots or even taking it to a tech who can use a nut file to widen the slot slightly can work wonders. My G&L ASAT was hard work for years until a friend who is a luthier pointed out that they are set up for extra light strings (.009 top E) and I use .010s. One would think there would be leeway but apparently not always. He widened the offending slots (G and B) and it has been perfect ever since.
My ES335 on the other hand was harder to fix: the slots were so deep that the luthier this time had little margin for widening as it would have meant deepening too. We tried a couple of times to get it staying in tune without sticking but in the end had to admit defeat and changed the nut for black Tusq. Now that stays beautifully in tune too!
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Fire your luthier
When grooves are too deep, there’s the old trick of filling them with super glue or gorilla glue or something similar (preferably clear in color) and then filing them to the desired height. Fast, cheap and it preserves the nut. You’ll be surprised at how well it really works.
Also...another old trick when changing strings to bigger gauges is to use the wound strings themselves as files to widen the grooves. All it takes is a couple of passes, like if you were using the string as dental floss on the nut. And if you remove too much material by accident, then do the super glue trick and start over lol