Brass nuts

[keymandoplyr]

Have you ever seen/played a mandolin with a brass nut ? what did it sound/play like.?How would that compare to original ? http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[Martin Jonas]

There were several Italian bowlback makers around 1900, such as de Meglio and Ceccherini, who used exclusively brass nuts. I have several of these. However, in each case, the "nut" is constructed quite differently from a bone nut in that the slots are only on the tuner side, with the strings terminating on the fretboard side in a smooth metal saddle. Thus, these nuts are really more like zero frets.

Consequently, the sound is much like you would expect with a zero fret: not much difference between an open and a fretted note. Works just fine, and looks great on these instruments.

Martin

[dave17120]

Here's a couple of pictures of brass nuts......... often accompanied by a cylindrical solid brass bridge saddle.....
Dave

[dave17120]

And another.....

[Rick Turner]

Kind of weird spacing...

[brunello97]

Am I getting this right? Would the strings be resting on the zero fret (which then in turn must be slightly higher than the rest of the neck frets)? If this is true would the height of the zero fret be relatively the same as the height of slots in a nut?

I like the idea of an open string and and fretted note sounding similar, as Martin describes it. Would this make the nut fabrication, say in the terms as Rick has described it, more or less difficult? ("the same" is a valid answer...)

thanks,

Mick

[kww]

The strings rest on the zero fret, and the depth of the slots in the nut has to be deeper than the height of the zero fret. I think the only requirement on the nut slot depth is that it be deep enough that the string not rest on it.

I play a zero-fret instrument, and like it. I am not a luthier.

[Rick Turner]

I made literally hundreds of brass nuts for Alembic basses and guitars back in the day. The best was when John Entwistle asked me to make height adjustable nuts for his instruments because he changed un-polished RotoSound bass strings every night, and the strings literally filed the notches deeper faster than they wore down the first fret. I put jack screws between the 1st & 2nd and 3rd & 4th strings and a lock down screw between the 2nd & 3rd that went into a brass plate under the nut. It worked just great, though it was costly to make by hand in small quantities. But being the bass player for the Who, John didn't exactly worry about a $200.00 string nut. You could certainly do the same thing for a mandolin nut.

[Martin Jonas]

The use of a zero fret is really unrelated to the use of a brass nut -- if you have a zero fret, it doesn't matter anymore what the material of the nut itself is (which really is only a string spacer), and neither does it matter whether the slots are cut properly. Any slot shape will do, as long as the string doesn't bind and rests firmly on the zero fret. That means that making the nut is much easier than without a zero fret. This is one reason why many very cheap instruments have zero frets, which in turn has got the zero fret itself a bad name, quite unjustifiedly.

The zero fret should be the same height as all the other frets -- the open strings are resting on the zero fret as long as the nut slots are deeper than the level of the frets.

I have several instruments with zero frets, and the nuts on them have many different materials: brass, wood, plastic, bone and pearl. Makes no difference at all to functionality.

The pictures posted by Dave show the de Meglio type of brass nut. These consist of two separate bits, the nut and the zero fret, which both sit in the same slot. The Ceccherini design is a bit fancier, with both being cast in one unit as can be seen in the pictures in this (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=6;t=37018;hl=ceccherini) thread.

The de Meglio design has one very big advantage: they are the easiest mandolins I know to convert to lefty. All you need to do is pop the nut out (it comes out easily when the strings are off) and turn it around so that the wider slots are on the other side. All bracing is symmetrical and the bridge has a similar design to the nut with a smooth brass saddle so that no further conversion is necessary. Takes about ten seconds, plus the time for restringing.

Martin

[Rick Turner]

The problem when you make the zero fret exactly the same height as the first fret is that it wears quicker than any of the frets because the strings are constantly pushing down on it and as the open strings vibrate, they kind of push into the zero fret wire; and then as you tune the strings they act like files wearing grooves into the zero fret. On electric guitars there's another problem and that is that when the player bends notes in the lower positions, the strings scrape across the zero fret, also putting in excessive and rapid wear. I made about 200 instruments with zero frets. Been there; done that; dealt with it; went back to conventional string nuts. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

[kww]

This is a much more conventional looking zero fret. It is moderately higher than the standard frets. The nut on this instrument is a plastic cheapie, but, as they say, it doesn't matter with a zero fret.

[Rick Turner]

Too many strings, Mozart! (to paraphrase a line from an amusing movie...)

Yes, I finally used a larger piece of fret wire...and that kind of worked, but lost one of the advantages...easy low string action. I also filed off the barbs on the fret wire so the zero fret could be more easily replaced. And I still returned to good old bone nuts.

I might give the brass height adjustable nut another whirl, though, when I get my CNC machine figured out.

[dave17120]

This kind of turned into a discussion about zero frets rather than brass nuts.....hmmm?
Does it sound any different? Well the several that I have restored with brass nuts, have to me all sounded... how shal I put it?? a bit BRASSY perhaps!!

Sorry about that, I couldn't resist. But really, I felt they lost a lot of the warmth of tone of the bowls, coming over more strident and metallic.
Dave

[John Flynn]

You'd need brass nuts to play at some of the bars I've played at, but that's a different story! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Bobbie Dier]

I've been avoiding this thread but....I had to see what you guys were talking about. I thought it was about the kind of brass nuts that came on a brass monkey. Now I know. Sorry.. back to the regular program. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif