The baking soda and super glue trick

I've got a question for you on Saturday we were playing and I noticed that I had my guitar in tune but the low e-string kept popping in and out while we were playing and strumming so taking a look at it I noticed that the nut was busted on top I found something that said baking soda and superglue can repair a nut I'm not sure about that what can you tell me about it before I get into whether or not I can help you with the nut on this guitar here is a little background on baking soda and superglue the baking soda superglue trick mix the two together and you get something hard as a rock this is regular old household baking soda and you hit that with a drop of water thin super glue and go off and let it rest for a minute or two and come back and check it out I gave this about a minute and it chips like glass when I use this for is when the nut slots worn too deep or been cut too deep as at least a temporary fix to get the guitar out the door I'll show you how I do it for my demonstration I'm using an old Washburn guitar from the 1920s and it's got a lot of troubles with the nut it's an ivory nut and the strings have worn way too low over the years and maybe somebody recut them and the first string is laying on the fret I'm just gonna move a couple of strings out of the way and only work on the troubledy string slot check out the string that's tied together in a knot to get the most mileage out of that string I cleaned it up with acetone get all that grease and dirt out and now I'm using probably a 40,000 snut slutting file rolling it back and forth to getting a new material and get rid of that dirt I want to get down to clean ivory or a clean bone so my glue will stick that's more acetone and a little bit more filing until it gets clean if it's not clean it won't stick I like this little tip of sliding something under the strings to pull my tape in place here I'm using my blue spatula which is good for putting dust into the slot and packing it down for dust I'm gonna use a nut that I took out of the drawer that's an old nut off some other guitar it's bone not ivory and it's the perfect color because it's kind of yellowed so I'm filing off bone dust in the area to like get a little pile of it using the smooth side of a file I want the dust to be small and powdery almost like the baking soda I get rid of the excess so it won't stick to the tape because that super glue is really thin it could run down onto it and glue the whole thing together I'll start off the edge and let the glue run into the slot now I'm packing in more dust and another shot that's took me two times to fill it and it hardens almost as fast as the baking soda something about the bone and ivory and super glue there acts real quick now I'm just gonna reshape it a bit give it smooth it's all filled then they can recut the slot for the string hopefully I can save that originally string it's vintage make a little impression in the material from the string and follow that with a sharp feather file and I use a razor saw I think that's probably a 10,000 gauge precision saw to cut that slot with us some of the following marks with a little 320 grit paper and I should be back in business that's how fast you can follow nuts lot with bone dos and superglue or baking soda that uh yes for Lou's guitar we'll have to see because it's a plastic nut for one thing and it seems to be sitting on another plastic nut or a big shelf of plastic that's been shimmed up baking soda will fill plastic but not every plastic but it's not gonna work on a corner that's too weak it probably got cracked at some point and that's why it chipped off and if you tune that string up it's gonna share off whatever I put on there this is a case where I go to the drawer and get out a premade nut this tusk one looks like a perfect fit and we'll find out by knocking out the old one and seeing this is great it slides in as tight as I could ever fit it by hand I don't even need a file or a chisel it's getting tight right there like sliding in a drawer I'll put on the two outside East Rings and if they're right it's gonna work that's doesn't even need a shim that's amazing it does not need a baking sort of fix if you can change the nut that quick

Channel: StewMac

Views: 12,108,596

Rating: 4.7523909 out of 5

Keywords: Dan Erlewine, superglue, baking soda, Lou Horvath, StewMac, Steward McDonald, bone dust, razor saw

Id: slCMkvEfK_U

Length: 5min 36sec (336 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 15 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/MouseShank]

I don't even play the guitar, but I could watch this guy repair them all day.

[u/pie-man]

almost /r/artisanvideos material

[u/g000dn]

I never knew that busting nuts on a guitar was such an issue.

[u/ImAnAfricanCanuck]

but he didnt even use the trick except to show how it works at the beginning... he just fixed the broken guitar with a new nut...

[u/UltraChilly]

He has a very soothing voice

[u/dredawg]

I would call it a trick if it didnt take so long and didnt require specialized set of files and bone dust (was the baking soda even used?). Not to diminish the job, but I would call it a technique instead of a trick.

[u/toxicpaper]

I've been doing this for years! If you cut your fingernail too short, put superglue on the exposed tender part, then sprinkle baking soda on it! Step 3: Profit! But in all seriousness, it works excellent for fingernail repair.

[u/Selectiveinsomnia]

Why did i watch that whole video?

[u/BearguanaMan]

So....many.....puns.....