Electric Guitar Trends

By electric guitar nut, I mean that part of the guitar, not you personally.

The nut of the guitar lives at the top of your electric guitar’s fretboard, on the opposite end from the bridge of your guitar.

Along with the guitar’s bridge, the guitar nut’s job is to guide and support the strings above the fretboard.

Traditionally guitar nuts were made of bone, usually the horn of an animal. It is a genuine skill to craft a guitar nut out of bone.  Each of the six slots must be of the correct size and depth.  If the slot is too shallow for the particular string, the string may rattle when played open.  If the slot is too narrow the string could pinch, and this lead to tuning problems.

A crafted bone nut is a luxury nowadays, but some guitar players insist on having the unique sound they provide.

Plastic is an obvious choice for guitar nuts and they started appearing in the 1950’s.   It is hard enough and can easily be molded into shape.  However, there are different grades of plastic and on some guitars plastic guitar nuts are too soft, or even hollow inside.

Corian®, Graph-Tech® Micarta®, or Tusc®, are synthetic materials used in making guitar nuts and they are excellent for this type of use. In general, they produce a warmer, more even sound than bone. Micarta also secretes a lubricant when it gets warm and this can be helpful for those electric guitar players using a tremolo.

For those players who are using a Floyd Rose tremolo system, allen screws are employed at the nut to lock the strings in place after tuning.

Electric guitar nuts are also available in aluminum, brass and nickel.  The sound produced by these materials is bright with good sustain.

For do it yourselfers, the metal nuts and the Earvana® compensated nut have the string slots pre-cut.  The Earvana® compensated nut has staggered slots to ensure accurate intonation of your guitar.

It is very common for electric guitar nuts to be seated too high off the fretboard. When trying out a new or used guitar, check the intonation at the first fret to test for this.  This type of problem can easily be corrected by a guitar tech.