Hello everyone, I recently swapped out the nut on my MIM Road Worn and I wanted to share an issue I encountered that might be useful for other people to know, since I don't recall seeing it elsewhere.
The MIM Road Worn has a 7.25" fretboard radius, and it's known that Fenders made in North America have a curved nut slot as well. I had assumed that the nut slot would be the same the fretboard, but no. The nut slot radius was in fact 9.5"!
Keep this in mind if you're changing the nut on a MIM Fender that has a 7.25" radius fretboard and are planning on using a pre-shaped nut from a luthier supply shop like StewMac. These nuts are radiused the same on the top and bottom, so if you get a 7.25" radius nut it won't fit properly.
It should've been a giveaway that Fender's proprietary aftermarket nuts are 7.25" on top and 9.5" on the bottom, but I got one from a third party so I ended up having to re-radius the bottom of my replacement bone nut using the old nut as the world's tiniest sanding block (I guess the fact that the top radius of the stock nut wasn't 7.25" also could've been a clue).
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Tl;dr - The nut slot radius on a MIM Fender may be different than the fretboard radius!
The MIM Road Worn has a 7.25" fretboard radius, and it's known that Fenders made in North America have a curved nut slot as well. I had assumed that the nut slot would be the same the fretboard, but no. The nut slot radius was in fact 9.5"!
Keep this in mind if you're changing the nut on a MIM Fender that has a 7.25" radius fretboard and are planning on using a pre-shaped nut from a luthier supply shop like StewMac. These nuts are radiused the same on the top and bottom, so if you get a 7.25" radius nut it won't fit properly.
It should've been a giveaway that Fender's proprietary aftermarket nuts are 7.25" on top and 9.5" on the bottom, but I got one from a third party so I ended up having to re-radius the bottom of my replacement bone nut using the old nut as the world's tiniest sanding block (I guess the fact that the top radius of the stock nut wasn't 7.25" also could've been a clue).
——————————————————
Tl;dr - The nut slot radius on a MIM Fender may be different than the fretboard radius!
