Bass setup guidelines

What would you use to fill an overcut nut slot?

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Here’s a thought - If you deem that the nut slots are too low, or too high for that matter, would it not be possible to just tune down 1/2 step and capo at the first fret to get back to standard EADG tuning.
If this sorted out the nut height issue it may be a good alternative to playing with nut slot depths.

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It isn’t, but it happens anyway.

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If all your nut slots are too low, you can shim the whole nut or build it up with cyanoacrylate (crazy) glue and baking soda or cyanoacrylate and tissue paper.

CAVEAT: the baking soda cooks off the cyanoacrylate right quick and leaves a sandable plastic, but you really need to be careful otherwise it’s a mess.

For a single slot, that’s trickier. I used a bit of doubled up electrical tape on mine. I appreciate the solution is a bit redneck engineer, but hey, I grew up on a farm in Grey County :smiley:

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I am in Simcoe County.
Where are you now?

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Guelph. Not far away.

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This…or bone dust that you can also buy.
Stew Mac has colored dust you can buy if you want to get fancy/matchy

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I am just south of Barrie out in the country.
I got my TRBX 504 from JJ Music in London, ON a month and a half ago.
Very helpful people.

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Shimming up a low nut is easy. I just used business cards a shim stock. Worked perfectly. Had to do it when the Graphtech nut I bought was too short.

Changing nuts is super easy - terrifying the first time you do it, routine after that. I did it out of necessity last year when I broke my nut and I kind of slapped myself for not doing it sooner. Just buy a few nuts, some good sandpaper, and small detailing/diamond files - you don’t need the expensive luthier nut files, though I imagine they are nice to have. But just going slow with a normal round and/or slot diamond file has always worked perfectly for me.

I recommend popping the nut off, filing it, and putting it back on to test. It’s slower but easier I think, and less nerve wracking. Plus it’s the only way to sand it.

Just take off a little material at a time.

To test, for each string, tighten it up a little until it holds the nut down, then fret the third fret right up against the second fret wire. The string should just barely visibly clear the first fret. Touching the first fret is too low, and more than just a tiny visible gap barely clearing the fret is too high.

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What would you recommend for sandpaper grade and make of nut for my TRBX 504?

That is the part that scares me.
How do you just pop the nut off?

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For the types of sandpaper - I just used something like 250, then 400 and 1000 grit. But for that and popping the nut off I recommend finding some videos. It’s easy but will make much more sense if you watch someone do it. The tl;dr is you put a block against it and hammer it off, but watchign it will make it be not nearly as bad as it sounds. It’s easy and harmless.

For the nut itself I went with a Graphtech Tusq. It required significant sanding then shimming, but very little filing.

But I wouldn’t recommend this. Instead if I were you I would do what I discovered later - just order replacement plastic TRBX nuts from Yamaha. 304/504/604 are all the same, are inexpensive, and ship from yamaha24x7.com. And they have the angles just right.

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@PamPurrs just did this and replaced with a zero fret, there is a thread somewhere.

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Here is my video in which I replaced the nut with a Zero Fret. Hope this helps.

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Thank you for getting back to me.

I agree. The nut angles are one thing a lot of people do not seem to mention.

One last question:
Is glue necessary to hold the nut in place and if so what type would you recommend?

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Thank you was most informative.

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The strings hold the nut down. So just a tiny amount of glue, very small drop of superglue maybe, should be more than enough to hold it in place when the strings are off. You only want to use a tiny amount so it is easy to pop off again; all it is there for is to keep the thing from falling off when you loosen the strings.

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So no real need to use glue then - is this correct?

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I had one bass (can’t remember which) if I took all the strings off, the nut just fell off. No glue, the strings just held it in place.

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I would use a little just so it doesn’t slide around when you loosen the strings. You want it fixed in place.

But when the strings are tightened, yeah, they are more than enough.

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Thanks AGAIN @howard

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