The Zero Glide Replacement Nut System borrows the "zero fret" concept to reduce string contact in the nut by up to 93%, increasing tuning stability, playability, and open string tone. It only takes a few minutes to install with absolutely no permanent alteration to your instrument. For Resonator Guitars & Lap Steels.
I m impressed with this. Easy to install. I m not a luthiar but I have refretted a few guitars and made some nuts and saddles. This is a pretty incredible system. I was going to cut a new nut for an acoustic guitar I just bought. I tested it and it was not sliding perfectly through the nut even though there was no ping while tuning. The way I test a nut is to strike a note then smack the string between the nut and the machine heads. behind the nut I put a tuner on the head stock so I can watch the note go up and come back. It simulates a good bend and you can watch the quality of the nut you have on the guitar. Most guitars will stick at about 6 to 10 cents above the tuned note unless you have a really well cut nut. At least the wound strings will....steel strings will usually drop back to the tuned note if the nut is decent . The nut I had on this guitar was pretty good....no pings while tuning yet it would still catch occasionally which effected tuning.
I bought the mandolin version and fitted it to my Gibson. There's a lot of extra material to remove, but the result was great. Easier tuning (the old nut had tight slots for the A strings), better intonation. Later I used one of the extra frets in the package to fix a tenor guitar. For that, I simply filed the necessary ledges in the existing nut and widened the string slots. It would be nice if Stew-Mac would also sell the offset tang frets separately, for retrofitting to an existing nut.
I put one on my Taylor 12 fret, it made a big improvement in string tone, tuning, and intonation. I'm now going to install them on all my guitars.
I had a Zero Glide Zero Fret Nut installed on my 68 Epiphone SG Clone by the luthier who does ALL of my guitar work Scott Thompson at String Craft - here in Memphis . 1st off I have to say that this guitar is one of my go-to guitars the others being my 1964 handmade Mosrite Celebrity Prototype and an early 80 s Mexican Telecaster. Upon getting my guitar back with the new Zero Glide installed I plugged it into my 65 Blackface Deluxe Reverb with a JBL D120f and I was IMMEDIATELY blow away by the improvement in the TONE of this guitar... It was pretty good before BUT now it is piano like ... The tone blew me away not to mention the improvement in ACTION... You see I am a BIG proponent of Zero Frets due to my Mosrite which is the standard by which I judge all others but I was not ready for the massive improvement that was realized by the installation of the Zero Glide Zero Fret Nut on this guitar. I have used this guitar now on a couple of gigs and am STILL blown away. OH tun
I've used this for over a month and I'm more happy now than when I first installed it. The intonation on my acoustic is better than it ever was...you can fine tune the saddle almost dead on for intonation. One suggestion.....be sure to glue in the zero fret with a few drops of glue once you get the guitar right. I was working on my guitar on and off for a month and didn't glue in the zero fret. I was taking the strings on and off. Every time you reinstall the zero fret it will be in a slightly different place. String against fret will cause a slightly different indentation in the zero fret. You want the string to stay in the same spot on the zero fret.