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Check out this thought provoking video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7YG90L ... nventor101

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Impressive. Make your own lubricated nut?
Maybe less time and effort just to buy a TUSQ XL one.
The TUSQ XL helped with tuning stability on a recent setup job I was given (whammy bar)

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Hummm… thanks, I'll try this on the next black nut repair.


Pierre
Guitares Torvisse

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Pierre Castonguay

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

these posts are so questionable
I don't think I would use it especially on a valuable guitar something real cheap maybe
On guitars you always have to consider the end result and what repairs down the road will be needed
The more I do this the less i use CA

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I am more interested in exploring real world data on the engineering and chemistry of such a mix - not necessarily for guitar repair. However, many of the electrics that cross my bench have black nuts these days, so using it in a repair offers an option that could be used.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

The link took me to a video where someone was using CA and cotton to fix plastic things.

Yea, I have had the same thing on this link as well as a few others. I think it is a Youtube issue. What happens is when you click on the link it does take you to the correct video but it actually starts at the very end of the video you want to see and goes directly to the next video.

If you just click the back arrow you will see the right one. I have noticed this lately on a few links I have clicked that go to Youtube.


This is an interesting idea, looks much stronger than baking soda.

Cheers,
Bob

I’ve been using bone dust for white nuts and buffalo horn for black ones, but I find the buffalo horn is not drying as hard as bone, and not quite black enough, so maybe I'll give this a try.


Pierre
Guitares Torvisse

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Pierre Castonguay

UV cured dental enamel is the better option. Much harder than CA mixtures and really not that expensive to get setup.

Light cured dental fillings are indeed a better option and not only much harder I just filled a black Dean nut Saturday with white dental fillings and it didn't show at all with the string in place. We want maybe a thou on each side and/or fitment for one gage up in strings of a properly cut nut slot of wiggle room and when this was the case no one could see the fill under the string.

I'll add light cured dental fillings also come in clear I was just out of clear yesterday.

I wouldn't think that graphite would be any better than bone because the weak link in the matrix is the CA that easily abrades especially with a wound string acting like a file.

And just to add a bit more description to the dental filling process for those who have not done it the fill is harder than the surrounding bone of the nut and as such will last longer so I would make the case it's a more durable fill as well.

I've tried many methods but have settled on one. Notch out the slot and glue in a tiny block of bone, re-carve the top and back and then re-slot it.


But I have been wanting to try the UV cured stuff. Where do you guys get the dental stuff from?

Ebay. You can pick up a UV light for 20 or 30 bucks. And the resin is usually expired dental stuff for 10 or 20 buckeroos. I also got some UV bonding adhesive which is applied first.

Our supplies come from any one of half a dozen dentists who are regular clients of ours. Our first ever gun came from Ron a guitar builder and dentist. The gun keeps on working so we have not replaced it yet.

We have a standing request with our dentist clients to give us the old fills they don't want anymore and they are happy to repurpose it for guitars. My personal dentist is hip to help us too and always wants to know who's been in our shop that's notable.

Point being folks are happy to help with this, dentists in our experience and most of the time other than the bonder this stuff costs us nothing.

N32 Dental is also a dental supply house that has sold to us a number of times and that's where we get our bonding agent. Dentists use up their bonding agents so we have to source that.

The fresh stuff which we prefer so it flows easily into the micro dovetails that I make with my nut files in my effort to have mechanical bonding as well as chemical bonding is easier to work with in my experience. The older stuff is good if you have to rebuild a nut corner and want a consistency like clay. For slots I prefer flowable though.

My dentist used to save his dental burrs for me to use in the Dremels, and I had several doctors saving me medical stuff like scalpels, forceps, etc. It's all casts-offs, so instead of tossing in the trash, why not let me put it to use?

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Oh!Well dang! I guess next time I'm in for a check up I'll have to have a chat with my dentist.

That's what we did and my two personal dentists (one retired) were both invited to our shop to see what we do. These folks are into hand tool skills big time, dentists are so both of my dentists visited us and then contributed old supplies to us.

A little goes a long way our stuff usually dries up and gets pitched before we use it and we are filling nut slots nearly every day. I had two this morning with low slots that the owner did after reading google..... People working on their own guitars and messing them up sadly.