Needed: Guitar Nut for small childs guitar.

November 1, 2009 7:50 AM

I found a kid sized guitar in the trash the other day and it's missing the nut. The neck at the the nut measures exactly 1 1/2". The E string to E string length would be 1 3/16". I've checked all the guitar nut sellers online and no one seems to have a nut that measures this size. Do I need to just get a blank nut and do the slots myself or is there a seller I'm missing?
posted by yfatah to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total)

I think you may be hard-pressed to find pre-slotted nuts for any but the most common standard models of guitar (Fender Stratocaster/Telecaster, Gibson Les Paul, etc., Martin D28, etc.) But, IANAL (I Am Not A Luthier) - I just spend lots of time wishing I had the workshop & tools to be one.
posted by usonian at 8:18 AM on November 1, 2009

if the folks at Elderly can't help you, no-one can... give them a call.
posted by HuronBob at 8:30 AM on November 1, 2009

I think you'd probably want to make a new one anyway. If you found one that was the right spacing, the strings would probably be a bit high, so you'd still have to file them down.

I'm not a guitar guy (violin family) but my best guess would be to buy an onslotted blank, and trim it so it fit the guitar, then file in the notches.

Things that would be pretty nice to have to do this: spacing
couple fret files from Stewart Macdonald
A little benchtop hobby belt or disk sander
a pair of pointy dividers for equally spacing the strings.

Again, I'm not a guitar guy.
posted by sully75 at 8:30 AM on November 1, 2009

Try contacting someone who carries guitars for kids (like here) and ask them. If anyone would know, they would.
posted by watercarrier at 8:30 AM on November 1, 2009

Have you tried StewMac?
posted by cazoo at 10:23 AM on November 1, 2009

If StewMac doesn't have it, you'd better get ready to carve you own.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:18 PM on November 1, 2009