GIBSON SG WITH LOCKING NUT ?
I have a Gibson SG that I had a hard time keeping in tune.
I blamed the tuners and added this fine-tuner tailpiece:
Click image for larger.
Problems continued, and I realized that the strings were binding in the nut whenever I would bend strings.
I figured one solution was to replace the nut with one of those slippery ones, or just open up the slots a bit.
But, I had a wild hair that I could make a no-holes-drilled pseudo locking nut.
I made it out of scrap cut off a hanging file-folder rail. Drilled and tapped a few holes and presto - big improvement!
Basically it just clamps all the strings together on the tuner side of the nut.
The metal sits against the nut but other than that is floating, nothing touches the headstock.
You can see in this picture that even the ends of the screws are clear.
I don't know if I can put the truss-rod cover back on, maybe with a little finessing.
You might wonder about radius, in other words are the strings really on a flat plane?
I thought this might be a problem and expected to have to bend the metal a bit, but the strings were either close enough to being 'on plane' or happy enough to give a little that I left the metal flat.
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G.R. 2/15/2010
Fine print dept: Blah blah blah.