Nut Material "What's Right For You"

You know, I was thinking about nut material for guitars and it was pretty obvious that this is one of the big things you can do to help with your tone.  In this post, I'm going to go over some of the materials that are commonly used for this purpose and explain the benefits and possible disadvantages of each material.  First, I need to grab a beer (Yuengling of course )

We'll start with the cheapest and work our way up to the good stuff.

• Molded Plastic - If your guitar has this, get rid of it as soon as possible.  This is just about the worst stuff you can have for nut material.  A lot of guitar manufacturers use this material because it's cheap and you can get it molded with the string slots already in the plastic.  It is also a tone suck, by this I mean that this material will not allow the guitar to sustain properly.  In other words, I don't recommend this stuff at all.
• Corian Material - This is a step up from the molded plastic, however, it is still not the greatest material to use.  Your sustain will increase slightly with this material but not enough to invest in this as your go to material to use for nuts.
• Tusq Nuts - These are from a company by the name of Graph Tech.  They make pretty decent stuff.  Again this is a polymer based material with high levels of heat and pressure to transfer string energy and allow the guitar to sustain much better.  For a synthetic material, I would recommend this for all around purposes.  
• Black Tusq Nuts - Again, this is a material from Graph Tech.  It is made with the same technique of high heat and pressure except that the material is infused with microscopic teflon that is much better than graphite.  If you have a guitar that has a tremolo of any kind, I would highly recommend this material.  You will notice better sustain than graphite as well as a material that won't bind up your strings and cause them to go out of tune.
• Micarta Material - This material is a synthetic bone substitute and one that has been used in Martin Guitars since the 1960's.  It is a little softer than bone and will wear out a little bit quicker with not quite as much sustain.  With that being said, this material is one of the better out there when it comes to bone like quality.  If it's good enough for Martin, it's probably good enough for just about anyone.
• White Bone Material - To me this is the cream of the crop for nut material.  First of all, it is extremely hard and dense which allows you to get all the sustain that you could ever want out of your guitar.  Second, because it is so hard, it also lasts quite a long time and does great with filing.  This is a material that luthiers have depended on for years, and there is a reason, it's just the best for most applications on guitars.  It also makes one hell of a bridge for acoustic instruments.

There are a couple of other materials that are used for nut material such as mother of pearl which is used mostly for high end banjo's, and brass which I have seen in use on basses mostly.  I would not recommend either of these materials for guitars, but of course that is for you to decide.  I hope this post helps you in your quest for the ultimate in tonal satisfaction, and please keep us posted on your thoughts as well.  Oh, and don't forget to pass the word about the blog, and as always, pics are on the way.

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