Dan Erlewine's Quick Fix for Fret Buzz Caused by the Nut

[Music] I got a buzz on this beautiful guitar it's in 1937 Kalamazoo kg 11 that means it's pushing a hundred years old I haven't really played it yet I've had it two and a half years I know I've been putting it off because it has a buzz it's the B string it's too low in the nut and it's an old not made of Ebony I want to keep this original I don't want to replace it I don't even want to put bone on it which I so often recommend because I like the sweet sound of Ebony the B string so low that the string buzzes on the first fret I'll raise this slop by filling it then refiling it to the right depth I've raised a lot of string slots in my life starting when I was like 17 or 18 and my first Bandhan had borrowed a harmony rock of the electric cuz I was a folk player and one of the slots was too low like this and I raised it with a piece of tinfoil from a Doublemint gum wrapper that kind of led me down the road to being a guitar repairman so I have a fix that I can bring this nut slot up from the bottom and it's gonna be easy because I have a magic potion I'm gonna fill this low string slot with nut powder that's my magic potion and add a drop of water thin super glue to make a hard fill raising the bottom of the slot these nut powders come from Joe Glaser shop in Nashville Tennessee him and his guys down there are great repairmen and they've been working on this for 20 years I'm gonna fix this Kalamazoo's nut and show you how I do it but black material sometimes don't show up too well on a video and this nut powder comes in light versions too so I'm using a bone color on this strap nut so you can see it better I do want to tape off a little something just in case I get sloppy that is a low tack tape and this is a 16,000 snut file skinny little thing that's what I'm gonna clean this out with I think I'll clean it first and get any dirt out of there and then I'll probably clean it again you could use black or thinner or isopropyl alcohol this is B call denatured alcohol I want to get into some new wood as long as I'm going to all this trouble I'll go on a little slant like this and dig into the sidewall it could even be slightly mushroom in the bottom which I would like because then the powder sticks down in there that's how the dentist fills your tooth paying it one more time so I'd say that's clean now I'm using a little exacto knife it's a good idea to add some roughness or some tooth as I call it to the wood so it grabs onto the powder and superglue better set a little powder into the slot don't sneeze pack it down a little now a water thin drop of superglue I have a brand-new water thin superglue number 10 with the whip tip on it I'm not gonna set it on the part of the right at the top it leaches its way in I used to do this with baking soda and superglue and that was always a temporary fix in my opinion and it doesn't look good with baking soda alone because the soda sort of turns gray this powder has bone dust in it so the repair lasts a long time and there's a lubricant in it that helps it too while it's still a little bit wet I'm going to drop some more on it because it won't be wet long because it's gonna harden up real fast that's more than enough [Music] believe that sit for five minutes maybe ten and by the way there's other uses for this nut Potter I found out for example I put a new pearl inlay and a Gibson Les Paul peg head that was getting refinished inlaid it glued it in then I had to fill around all the little gaps I picked up the ebony nut powder put it down in there here it was super glue and it was filled and easy to file down that was a new use for me okay we have been waiting really 15 minutes I'm using my old doll three-cornered file just to knock off some of the scratchy looking stuff on the top so I can see a little better I'm gonna drop in there and just clean it I'm straight and level there now I'm back falling a little bit and I'm gonna open it up on the backside a little bit just so the string doesn't catch up back there and before I do anything else I want to put the string in there and see if that is still sitting on the fret or right on top of it that's perfect it didn't take a lot you know I could completely fill that slot or all of these slots with this powder that's how hard this stuff gets I could cut a whole new set of slots and that's it it's fixed um I wish I had more to show you but that's how easy it is and that's the trick that's the magic potion good nutgrass cue kid if you like this kind of video please subscribe to our YouTube channel because it helps us bring them to you [Music]

Channel: StewMac

Views: 52,924

Rating: 4.9834151 out of 5

Keywords: fret buzz, guitar nut repair, repair guitar nut, Dan Erlewine, superglue, baking soda, StewMac, bone dust, razor saw, stewart macdonald, luthier, lutherie, luthiery, guitar nut, guitar nut filing, acoustic guitar nut repair, acoustic guitar repair, acoustic guitar string buzz, string buzz, string buzz sound, nut slots, nut slots too deep, baking soda and super glue, how to, guitar setup, adjusting guitar nut slots, fixing guitar, fixing guitar nut, fixing guitar nut slot

Id: IKbMbDNfr8E

Length: 5min 7sec (307 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 27 2020