Broken nut on my 2020 SG Special.

[Vics53]

I have a post in the Tech Area section regarding a broken nut on my 2020 SG Special. The title there is "How the H did this break?" I couldn't post photo's there but I was told I could post photo's here.

Don't know how it happened but the nut on my guitar appears to be broken through the whole lenght of the nut. The guitar has never fallen, has ever been abused, was ever dropped or banged into anything. I've never loaned the guitar to anyone either. Couldn't figure out why I was getting so much string/fret noise on the low E string and with a closer examination I saw the cracked nut. Trying to figure out how this happened. Great. Another unexpected expense for the month! Hopefully you'll see the crack in the provided pictures.

String gage is .010 through .046 and the tuning is standard.

 

[charliechitlins]

I've been messing with guitars for over 45 years, and have never seen anything like that.
I often remove nuts by putting something across the leading edge and hitting it sharply with a hammer, and I've never broken a nut like that.
If you're the original owner, Gibson might warranty it.
That appears to be a faulty material.
If worst comes to absolute worst, pay a good tech to cut you a new nut for 50 or 60 bucks and hope it's the worst thing that happens to you for at least a month.

 

[Hiwatts-n-Gibsons]

I have a post in the Tech Area section regarding a broken nut on my 2020 SG Special. The title there is "How the H did this break?" I couldn't post photo's there but I was told I could post photo's here.

Don't know how it happened but the nut on my guitar appears to be broken through the whole lenght of the nut. The guitar has never fallen, has ever been abused, was ever dropped or banged into anything. I've never loaned the guitar to anyone either. Couldn't figure out why I was getting so much string/fret noise on the low E string and with a closer examination I saw the cracked nut. Trying to figure out how this happened. Great. Another unexpected expense for the month! Hopefully you'll see the crack in the provided pictures.

String gage is .010 through .046 and the tuning is standard.

Wow, never seen that one. I agree with the poster above in that it seems like an issue with a faulty nut. It looks like there must have been some material imperfection running through the nut itself that caused it to break off on a uniform plane like that stretching across its entire width. Usually an impact would cause it to chip or crack through along some combination of its vertical and horizontal axes, and not just along one axis.

 

[Vics53]

Thanks guys. Something must have been on it's way to "breaking" because....after a while the high E just wasn't ringing out very well. The G string had this awful waver and the D string's volume seemed to taper off a bit and it also developed a waver.

I talked to a tech this morning and he had me order a Graph Tech Tusq Gibson nut blank. He said bone is good but sometimes you get one that's not as hard as others. He highly recommended the Graph Tech.

Could be here by Wednesday and when it does I'm gonna set up a time with the tech to take my guitar to him.

Funny, I wasn't angry or upset over this. Just looked upon it as a minor hassle to deal with. A bad guitar nut is nothing compared to what some poor folks are going through. Doing better than I deserve.

 

[Any Name You Wish]

Well it is the season of the "Nutcracker."

I would go with bone.

 

[Vics53]

Well it is the season of the "Nutcracker."

I would go with bone.

Well, since it is the "Nutcracker" season I'm doing it right!! I'll let ya all know how it turned out after the repair.

A happy Thanksgiving to all!

 

[Brian H]

That’s a lacquer line, not a crack.

 

[Brian H]

Gibson Nuts Prone To Crack?

Not sure if it's clear chipped off? Pics aren't the best sorry.

www.thegearpage.net

 

[Vics53]

Sorry friend, but it's a crack. You can even see where pieces are missing. Notice the little crack in the binding as well.

I have a theory about what happened. I took the guitar to a different tech earlier this year. I blame myself for not noticing, but I think he did something that started this. May have banged the neck at the nut into something that caused this damage. Of course, it's too late now and I can't prove it either. But as said, I've never dropped or banged the guitar into anything that could have caused this.

Water over the dam. The replacement nut came today and tomorrow I'm going to give the tech I contacted a call.

 

[Brian H]

Still looks like a piece of missing thick lacquer. This is a very common question. I’d be surprised if it was the nut.

 

[Vics53]

Still looks like a piece of missing thick lacquer. This is a very common question. I’d be surprised if it was the nut.

I can feel the indentations with my finger.

 

[Brian H]

Exactly. It’s a chunck of missing lacquer. You will feel it.

 

[Any Name You Wish]

There's a lot going on there. Several fracture lines, and right through the binding. It looks like it got wacked, and it looks like more than just cracks in the lacquer, but I guess you'll find out soon enough. Totally fixable. You can DIY but it is tedious to avoid chipping the lacquer off the mahogany part. It will play better than ever with a new bone nut. You might want to first try to get the lacquer off the side of the nut to ensure it is indeed cracked.

 

[Vics53]

The tech I'll be taking it to has a stellar reputation and he'll know best what to do. Looking forward to it because since I got it back from the other "tech" things haven't sounded right. The high E doesn't ring out very well, the D strings volume dropped off and developed a waver of sorts and the other night the low E is sounding weird as well. Again, I can't prove it but it appears he knocked the guitar into something. My fault for not paying better attention when I picked it up.

When done I'm hoping it'll play and sound better than ever. I've always wanted a good Gibson SG but I haven't been playing it much at all due to these issues. I want to play it! It's a thing of beauty to hold!

So I'll see what happens and I'll let you all know how it turns out.