Dang it! I broke my nut!

[randygwatkins]

Like a fool, I let my Duff slide off my lap onto the floor. The only damage seems to be the nut, which is cleanly broken. I have the piece, should I re-glue it or replace the whole nut? If it's OK to re-glue it, what glue would you use? It broke cleanly at one of the A string slots, and seems to be pearl.

RW

[Jim Garber]

I am no luthier, but I have a feeling that the whole nut should be replaced. I can't imagine that a nut with a faultline under the A string would be any good.

[bmac]

I agree... Stumac sells nut blanks... Having a couple is a good idea. You can use an old plastic comb as a nut blank if you want or lots of other materials might work as well. But actual nut blanks are available. See frets.com for info on shaping them. Tedius but not difficult.

[Jim Garber]

Yours looks like that is a pearl nut. StewMac has them.

[John Arnold]

Mother of pearl glues very well with thin CA, but it is difficult to keep it from running where you don't want it.

[Tom Haywood]

You could take it off, glue it back together with a drop of super glue (if it's not chipped too badly), and set it back in the slot. I wouldn't expect it to play just right or stay together very long, but it might and it will get you by until you can get another one made. Especially if it's your only mandolin. Don't glue it together in the slot.

[belbein]

Why not glue it together in the slot? And why thin CA? I would have thought that a little touch of the thick gel stuff, in the joint where the two broken pieces come together, would do the trick for now. I see that unstringing and re-engineering the nut is the right way to go, but if it's a question of a quick and dirty fix, why wouldn't the in-the-slot-with-gel thing work?

[Marty Jacobson]

Thin CA works well because MOP is made by depositing layers of the shell material. The glue can wick into any little gaps which formed at the time of impact, or any that were already there. From the Wikipedia article on "Nacre"...



Based on the title of the thread, Pete Jenner should show up with a witty remark any minute now... :-)

[sunburst]

...why wouldn't the in-the-slot-with-gel thing work?

Because it would get CA in the slot, and later, when someone has to remove the nut and replace it, they will have to clean the CA out of the nut slot, and quite possibly clean out pieces of the broken nut that are still glued in the slot after removing it. It also could damage the finish of the peghead.

[Pete Jenner]

Double post.

[Pete Jenner]

Based on the title of the thread, Pete Jenner should show up with a witty remark any minute now... :-)

I tend to steer clear of double entendre threads lest I be banned Marty.

From the Wikipedia article on "Double entendre".


Now I'll crawl back into my 'shell'.

[Rob Meldrum]

You can buy bone nut blanks on eB*y for under fifteen dollars for three or four, shipping included. Why horse around with trying to glue up a busted nut? If you're on a budget, buy the bone blanks and make a new nut. If you're flush with cash, pay a good mandolin shop to replace the nut with a good one and let them set it up. There's no sense in anything in between.

This is just one man's opinion... :-)

Rob

[pfox14]

I would definitely replace the whole thing. It will be too weak if it's just glued.

[belbein]

Yeah ... I wasn't suggesting it as a permanent fix. I might try it just until it was time to change the strings. John makes a good point, though, as always ... I always forget that CA runs to exactly the place you don't want it to go.