Nut gurus - are you out there???

Posted yesterday regarding a bum nut that needs replacement on my 52 RI USA tele. I would like to buy the nut and bring it in to the tech to make sure I get the right nut. In researching, looks like there are lots of choices. Questions:

Does this guitar require a flat or curved bottom nut?

Are there nuts specially made for 52 RI's to match the 1 5/8 nut width and do I care about the radius of the nut?

Anything to this "Tusq" material or graphite, or just stick to bone as I've been advised?

Any suggestions on where to buy? The guitarpartsresource.com seemed to have a good selection.

Thanks in advance, this is a real help. - Steve

Steve, do you live in the States? Take the neck out of the guitar and send it to Rob Di Stefano for the best nut job you'll ever get at 50 bucks plus shipping. This is his website: ROB (http://www.frettech.com/) Click on services.

He's a great and honest guy plus hell of a tech. You can't go wrong.

I'd go with bone; it's jut better, period. Tusq is fine, but if are expending the money on a tech you might as well get the good stuff.

Thanks for the info and connection to Rob. Hey, if he likes Rio Grande p/u's, he's gotta be good! Just ordered a set of em' for this very same tele. Thanks again.

Still interested in learning though what size/shape, etc. nut I need. Any answers to the original questions would be appreciated!!

No problem.

In Rob's web site there's a great "nut" tutorial in the link named "info". Another nice reference is the guitar repair book by Dan Erlewine. Your public library may have a copy.

Now, and this is in general, nut blanks usually come flat at the bottom, though you can always get a tusq "pre-sloted ones" which usually came ready for a 9.5" radius. I put one of those in a 10" radius neck with no problems, but please don't tell Rob….You just need to sand the top at the bottom. If you're doing it from scratch using bone, you'll need to buy one a little bit longer than the current nut with. Then, you use the existing nut to make a copy which will take care of the radius and the with. Follow Rob's tutorial for more details.

Raymond, thanks for all your help. Rob's info on nuts was very useful, and I also stumbled onto a nut disertation on frets.com that was also very good. Now that I've "boned" up on nuts (okay that was bad), I feel very comfortable that I know what I'm talking about, I'll probably take off the ole neck and ship it to Rob.