Adjusting Guitar Nut Height

Video Transcript

"Now sometimes, we've addressed our frets and sometimes we'll discover as we study this that our nut height when by measuring this first fret is pretty high. If it's higher than two or three thousandth of an inch at the first fret then you've probably got a problem with the nut. The nut may have been cut to high or the slots may have been cut a, to shallow. This one here's pretty good but let's assume that this measurement came out to be too high and it was a problem. If that's the case then you have to adjust the nut height itself. The best way to approach the nut height is to simply remove the strings, note how much that you have to lower the height of the, the nut. And here's a typical nut, this is off of a base and this is approximately one, one hundredth of an inch to high. So the way that I'm going to address this is rather then adjust the top of the nut, I don't want to change the nut slots, I will file it on the bottom side of this by the amount that's needed and again this is just like anything else, you put it on, put the strings on, test it, get it good and you're done. If you don't you take it off, take it apart again sand it so I'm just going to take this and with my flat file take it down one, one hundredths of an inch. Ideally it would be best to have a bigger flat file but a small one will do just as well and I prefer using a small one just because a, there's less likely hood that I take too much off. That's probably more than enough to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish and I can test it by putting it on the instrument, putting the strings back on, making my re-measurements and then we're set to go. And we've adjusted the height of the nut, better to adjust the height of the nut on the underside then it is on the top. Sometimes the nut will be glued in place, in that case you would want to remove the nut with a little bit of pressure by taking the strings off. By putting some edge against here and driving a soft hammer gently prying it loose, typically the nuts are not going to be glued with anything seriously enough that's going to create any harm, they're designed to be removed in most cases."