Replacing the Nut (2010 Fly Mojo)

[Fox]

Despite my valiant efforts to preserve the original factory nut on my 2010 Fly Mojo (viewtopic.php?t=1034), the way the nut was shaped caused the B and high E string to pop out of the slot when bending, so, a new nut was indeed needed.

Hopefully it didn't leave the factory like this, I think this is something someone did later on.

A proper luthier or tech should know better!

So I got a new old-stock nut from gman.music on Reverb (https://reverb.com/shop/gmanmusicllc). I got the one with the slots pre-cut, but I saw someone else also selling the 100% blank ones. My experience with GraphTech nuts has always been positive, so I trusted this one to be the right shape and all.

Before changing the nut, I had to convince my cat that it was a good idea. He was particularly protective of the guitar.

He's the best shop cat, but he gets in the way sometimes.

I measured to make sure the radius was correct, and yep, GraphTech once again didn't disappoint.

#NutIssues

[Fox]

The first thing to do in a case like this is to score with a blade on the sides of the nut to 'separate' it from the neck finish. If you don't do this, you will likely damage the finish on the area where the neck meets the nut. I see it all the time. Always score the nut first!!

Also score around the nut on the headstock, but have the blade at an oblique angle, do not score straight into the headstock! Same thing on the fretboard side, score into the nut, not into the fretboard. And you don't need a deep cut here, just enough of a scratch to give a failure point to the finish or whatever glue might be there, so the nut doesn't rip chunks of the guitar along with it when it comes off.

Then comes the truly scary part: Place a block of wood against the nut (on the fretboard side), and give it a tap with a hammer. It shouldn't take much to pop it off.

[Fox]

After removing the nut, very carefully clean the place where it was, to remove glue residues and any imperfections left behind.

The new nut will not fit without adjustments.
I personally prefer to leave the factory slots intact, and remove from the bottom until the height is correct.

Measure it 100 times if you have to, but it is crucial to get these measurements right if you're going to adjust the bottom and not each slot individually!

It's crucial to get each slot right too, but doing it this way you have 6x the chance of messing it up all at once! ;)

Some folks just take the nuts to the belt sander and have at it, but I do not like the idea of creating fine dust with whatever-the-heck these things are made of (even with a good dust extraction system), so I cut the bulk of it with a jeweler's saw, and then sand it to the final height. It's extremely important to keep the side facing the fretboard and the bottom of the nut at a 90-degrees angle!

Be gentle! These are very easy to sand!

[Fox]

Measure, take a little bit off, measure it, take a little bit off, measure it...! You can always take more off, but you can't put it back in, so measure, measure, measure!

When the strings are at the correct height, this nut needed one of its sides trimmed a bit to match the width of the neck.

Superglue is your friend here. You can put glue on the nut and hope for the best as you press it on the neck and have 0.05 seconds to adjust it, or you can clamp it in place and use capillary action to let the glue fix the nut to the neck. I did the latter. Put just a bit of glue on the sides of the nut and watch it seep under it.

This superglue is too thick. Use thin CA glue for best capillary action.

I also put a drop of thick superglue on the side to even it with the neck finish, filling the tiny gap between it and the new nut.

And now the strings don't come off when bending! Yay.
And the new nut just looks overall better put together, without 14+ years of wear and tear and all that.
I always try to preserve as much of original parts as possible, but sometimes you just have to replace them on an instrument that you're going to be playing.