GRAPHTECH TUSQ NUT - SLOTTED STRAT STYLE

Since I purchased my Fender Stratocaster from new back in 2018, it's suffered a major tuning issue on the G string (When the string was bent to increase pitch, it would detune around a quarter tone and when diving the tremolo it'd reach normal tuning again). This obviously pointed to a snagging issue somewhere. I replaced (Deep breath); - Removed string trees - Bridge saddles with graphite saddles - String trees with graphite trees - Standard tuners replaced with locking/staggered tuners - Plastic nut replaced with bone nut (This was done at PMT Southend by a professional) And the issue STILL persisted. Unhappy with "professionals" being unable to solve the issue, eventually I decided to investigate and on researching how to properly replace the nut I found that the "Professionals" had filed my current nut way too deep with incorrect break angles for the strings. The initial issue was compounded by the fact that the nut was incorrectly installed. Now for the review of THIS product. It solved all my issues, I filed the nut down using sandpaper taped to the 1st fret of the neck and sanded this to the proper height, fitted the nut with a tiny bit of appropriate glue and ran through a full set up of the guitar. It sounds awesome, there are ZERO tuning issues and I'm enjoying playing again. So much so that I'm going to be replacing the nuts on my Dean Z, Dean Vendetta and my Fender CD60 with TUSQ nuts. Great sound, great stability and I didn't even need to file the string slots down at all. Awesome product.

It fits ok to my 35year old Sunn mustang strat copy that I use for slide

I have lost count of how many TUSQ nuts I have installed into guitar / bass builds now. They are most important with guitars, where tremolo systems and string bends require all the contact points of a string to be as low-friction as possible, to maximise tuning stability. These nuts are easy to shape, with sandpaper or a metal file, and just require a couple of dabs of wood glue to hold them securely in place. In fact, that's a good tip: don't over-glue a nut. If you ever need to remove it, you have made life quite unnecessarily difficult! But the main tip is to buy these, because they are really great to build with, and will be a fine upgrade to your existing instrument.

As expected - good quality material (nice crisp glassy tone when dropped on hard surface) easy to sand and fine tune in order to make installation less troublesome.

Can’t recommend enough a massive improvement on standard nuts.

Had a Fender Mexican Strat which had tuning issues with the strings binding on the original nut. Had to lightly reduce the width and remove the tag with some wet and dry, taking it slowly as needed a snug fit. On putting new strings noted that the string binding had disappeared. I don’t use the trem much so was happy that this nut wasn’t the x variant. Great upgrade from the original and not too difficult to fit

I fitted this to a 2005 (I think) Fender Lite Ash Stratocaster. The nut was a little too wide, which I expected, and the string slots had a slightly wider spacing. My old nut was worn and I was having some tuning problems from it. I fitted this new one in about 10 minutes (but I did leave it overnight for the glue to dry). I'm very satisfied with the result. My guitar stays in tune even after a session of hard playing and multiple sing bends. The open strings sound a lot nicer than the old plastic nut. Before I purchased this I bought one of those Zero Glide nuts which turned out to be a disaster. Managed to snap the plastic part of the Zero Glide just by holding it in place to mark up where I was sanding it. This is much more solid and easier to work with. My fretboard radius on the Lite Ash Strat is 9.5in and the nut slot is flat so I didn't have to worry about shaping a curve into the bottom.

Why did you choose this product over others?: Does fit a strat but not without filing, which would have been fine, but they sent me a left-handed nut. Nowhere in the listing is this mentioned. Right-handed: PQ-5000-00. Left-handed: PQ-5000-L0. Guess they either pick at random or aren’t aware of the difference. Hope this helps someone else.