How to glue back on the nut part on my Dave Freshwater Bouzouki.
I was changing the strings on my bouzouki and the nut part came off.
Cheers
Ferg
If you’re in any doubts at all about doing basic work yourself, don’t. Find a guitar tech/luthier to do it.
That said, it’s a dead simple job. I’ve made and replaced nuts myself with no sweat.
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If necessary, clean the nut, the seat space where it will go and the end of the fretboard - just to make sure there’s no dust debris or glue residue.
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Different people have different methods of fixing, but several mando and guitar builders for whom I have great respect told me that their preferred way to do it (and the method I have always used) is to put a small drop of superglue on the end of the fretboard and then position the nut and hold it in place until set. Done this way, if you ever need to replace the nut then then the merest gentle tap will knock it free.
Give it a couple of minutes for the glue to set then string up. Job done.
Glue on the end of the fretboard is on the grain end so there is little or no chance of the glue pulling any slivers of wood away if you ever remove the nut. If you glue to the neck beneath the nut you are glueing along the side of the grain and problems occasionally crop up in the form of little bits of neck wood coming away when you remove the nut.
I tried to glue the nut back on to bouzouki but didn’t work.
Now the nut isn’t the original height anymore because I was sanding the nut to remove the glue.
I did re string the bouzouki by putting the nut back without glue . The strings now touch the fret.
Where to get one new replacement nut.
Cheers
Ferg
Depends if the nut is plastic or bone. If it was me I’d go for bone anyway.
You can buy bone nut blanks on the internet. A quick Google will pull up some sources. That said, from the trouble you’re having I’d guess that maybe you’re not quite ready to be making and fitting a new nut as a DIY project.
I’d suggest taking yr instrument to a guitar shop, with the old nut as a template for string spacing, and ask if they have a repairman who can do it for you. Shouldn’t cost a fortune.
Another suggestion would be to simply shim the existing nut to the proper height, using a small slat of wood or even plastic (e.g., cut from an old credit card). Sand the shim down as needed, and when the height is correct glue it lightly in place. With a good fit and even contact, this shouldn’t affect the tone of the instrument.
I agree that shimming under the nut is an easy solution. You can also shim under each string on the nut with paper. It doesn’t look professional, but it allows you to adjust each string individually to get rid of the buzz. You also might try not gluing the nut. Usually the string tension is enough to hold the nut in place without needing to glue it. Bone saddles in guitar bridges and wooden violin bridges are held in place using the above method. It is the player’s responsibility to see that the movable pieces (nut, saddle and bridge) are adjusted in the correct position while the strings are being tightened.
Shimming not only works, but is a pretty common fix. Odds are that if you take it to your local shop that’s what they’ll do anyway. It’s not cheating, it’s a standard technique. It’s often done as part of the ‘setup’ that is recommended for new instruments. New nuts are usually cut if you want to change sting spacing, replace a damaged nut, use a different nut material, that sort of thing.
The luthier and two techs I know do it all the time when they make nuts. You think they’re going to toss a couple of hours’ work and re-build a whole nut just because they sanded a little too much? Of course, being very skilled you’d never know they did it. When I do it, you can see it from across the room. 
I did try shimming inside the slots for individual strings, but I noticed a change in the tone that way, since the shim material was in contact with the string (I used card stock, which has a different consistency than the plastic of the nut). YMMV, of course. I’ve played most of my instruments without glue on the nut without any trouble. I always assumed the glue was just to keep the nut from falling of when you had all the strings off at once, sort of a convenience.
Two points:
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Placing a shim of softer material, i.e. credit card plastic, between the nut and the neck can definitely affect the tone. Softer material will absorb vibrations in exactly the place where you don’t want this happening. If you absolutely must shim, I’d say use ebony, or if you can manage it, bone.
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Professionally speaking, I would never hand an instrument back to a customer with a new nut that I had made, ruined, and then shimmed. That is really bad form. I will always consider shimming a last resort in any case; it’s hard to beat having a well-cut, well-fitted bone nut if you’re the least bit concerned about the tone and playability of your instrument.
Cheers,
Rob
Agreed. I shimmed a bone guitar saddle with plastic, and the result was less than spectacular. The nut should be less critical to tone, but point taken. I’ve had good luck with various woods.
the nut on your instrument is held down by the pressure of the strings…don’t you dare put glue on that!!!..lol, if it fell off put it back and put it back and tighten your strings…the bridge is the same
Is that standard on Freshwater instruments? Unusual.
While string tension is certainly enough to hold the nut in place on most string instruments, In 35+ years of playing guitars, basses, mandolins, bouzoukis, ukes, banjos and now fiddle, I have never owned one on which the nut wasn’t fixed.
I agree. I’ve never had a new instrument where the nut wasn’t glued in place, but I’ve played a number of them where it had become unglued for some reason and they worked just fine. They were, IIRC, the kind where the nut fits into a slot rather than being attached to the end of the fingerboard. With that kind I don’t think the string pressure would hold it correctly. I should think it would tilt. When I said ‘most of my instruments’ before I meant I meant the instruments I play. I’ve encounterd guitars, mandolins, banjos, and ukes with nuts in slots, not that all the ones I own have no glue. Sorry.
I did a temporary job with nut by cutting 2 slips of old plastic card to get right height.
I put the nut back and stringed up the bouzouki and the string height in now correct about 2.5 mm above the fret board.
The nut height is now 9.5 mm.
I will get one new replacement nut from by maker Dave Freshwater.
Cheers
Ferg
Got a new replacement nut for my Dave Freshwater 8 string Irish Bouzouki made by Gary TREEROOT on ebay. The nut is made from Hand-crafted-Ox-bone.
He did not need my Bouzouki for to fit the nut. I just give him the measurments. More detail information at the ebay link below.
Some photos of the new nut.
Cheers
Ferg
Looks like a neat job. 
How did you fix it in place?
I have put a wee drop of super glue on at both ends the bottom part of nut that rests on the fret board.
After I attached the nut I strung the bouzouki with new strings. I played a few chords and all I had to do with the nut then was to sand little bit at both ends so it was level with the fret board.
I am very happy with this nut, It is first class job. I have had no problem with the nut.
Cheers
Ferg
That’s really interesting, Rob. I didn’t
know that vibrations at the nut end
were important to the sound. I thought
all the business of sound production was
going on at the bridge. That explains why
bone nuts are desireable… I was just
wondering about that
Yeah, I’m curious, too. The bridge/saddle end makes sense. In keeping up with the seasonal humidity variations here, for my guitar I have different bone and Micarta saddles, unshimmed and shimmed with plastic or various soft and hard wood slips. And I can hear the differences. I tried ebony bridge pins instead of the stock Martin plastic pins, and couldn’t stand the treble overtones.
I’d think the nut contributes much less to the tone, though it probably affects sustain. As soon as you capo up, the nut is mostly out of the loop, and the strings behind the capo are effectively damped by the capo rubber. Yet the tone doesn’t change significantly. The head of the instrument definitely vibrates, but a lot of that is coming through the neck, and not through the nut. So I’d think that as long as the nut is seated solidly enough not to kill your sustain, you’re OK.
My Gibson ES-347 has the factory original brass nut, which is supposed to increase sustain, and brighten what is considered by some a slightly darker tone than the ES-335. But electrics are played mostly un-capoed, and people who have a bone nut report no real difference in tone.
I too would like to hear a reasonable explanation of how different nut materials change the tone of stopped and capo-ed strings on an instrument. There seems to be little logic in it, yet it is something touted by players and luthiers alike. Whenever I’ve pressed for an in-depth answer, all I get are comments like “Everything we do effects tone” and “It’s all part of the equation”. No one to date has given me a good reason why nut materials would affect anything but the sound of open strings. I’ve tried various nut materials and could never hear any difference at all. The materials have other useful characteristics, of course, but I just can’t understand the tone change claims.
Brace yourself!
Okay, let’s take an extreme example. Imagine a nut made of styrofoam. Forgetting for the moment that the string would cut right through, what do you reckon that would sound like? The lack of density of the nut material would mean that the strings’ vibrations would be absorbed by the nut, giving a muffled, muted sound. Bone, to choose the standard nut material, has a very different sound from styrofoam (I believe we can be reasonably certain of this despite the lack of experimental data) because its density prevents the strings’ energy from being robbed by the damping effect that a softer material would have. I believe that’s the best way to look at it: you don’t want the nut to take any of the strings’ energy as they’re vibrating. By logical extension, the best nut material would be diamond.
Alas, it’s not this simple. We, as players, are listening for something pleasing, not a scientific optimum. A softer nut might actually sound better on a guitar given to glassy or brittle tone. Bone may sound best to some because that’s what they are expecting to hear. It’s kind of like the scientific guitar designs of the 70s and 80s; mathematically, they may have been an improvement over a D-28, but what have players continued to choose? As for nut material, I tend to go for bone because it’s a good combination of hardness, workability (including the ability to be polished to a high shine, for both aesthetics and friction reduction), and sound. Even so, bone is itself a variable commodity, so I take care in material selection for each application.
Anything which comes into contact with the vibrating length of the string is going to have an effect on the tone produced. Few would argue that a bone saddle is no improvement over a plastic one. Likewise, harder frets have a definite impact on tone, with stainless steel being the brightest (don’t even get me started on poorly-crowned frets!). Going to the next level, wood selection has an impact on the sound of an instrument as well, especially for the top. Sitka just sounds different from cedar, no denying it. I’d say that neck wood selection is very important as well; holding dimensions equal, a stiffer neck wood will produce more sustain for the simple reason of not robbing string energy by wobbling. Some speak of this in terms of the neck transferring vibration to the body, but the point is the same: it’s all involved in tone production. If the neck is involved, then the nut, which couples the strings to the neck, is certainly involved. Cheers,
Rob