Guild X-175 (1976)
This beautiful older Guild archtop guitar belongs to one of the best players that I have ever met. It was purchased slightly used in 1977 and played until the mid 80’s when it was put away for need of new frets - the originals had worn out. In an effort to modify the tone of this guitar the owner had also made and installed a brass nut.
Our task here at Lenawee Lutherie was to refret this guitar, make and install a bone nut, clean/quiet the noisy electronics, fit an after-market bridge, reglue loose binding, and set-up the guitar for a top-tier player who was strongly influenced by Chet Atkins.
As you can see from the picture below a new bone nut would be an improvement. Also note the divots in the fretboard and the very flat frets...
In addition to having used a rather liberal quantity of super glue to glue the brass nut in place the gap between the fretboard end and the brass nut face was causing intonation issues.
The frets were removed and you can see from the following photo that the fretboard had a substantial amount of wear and divots and that the frets had corroded making this fretboard a mess...
My customer was interested in stainless steel fret wire having heard that it was harder and would last longer. Again this guitar had only been played for approximately 8 years before the frets were worn away to nearly nothing...
Stainless frets have been the topic of many discussions among guitar players and builders everywhere. My take and duty to my clients regarding stainless frets and the prospects for satisfaction with same is to advise my clients of the facts that I am aware of and let them, my clients, decide if they want stainless frets installed on their guitars.
What makes this a rather important subject is that in my experience some people who have experienced stainless frets find them to sound “thin” or “tinny” where others hear no discernible difference in tone between nickel silver fret wire and stainless fret wire. It also seems to me that the divide here is approximately 50/50 in terms of who hears a difference, or thinks that they have heard a difference, and who does not.
Adding to the importance of understanding the issue well is the cost factor in so much as once installed the only way to change out what ever frets have been installed is to do the refret over again at additional cost to the client.
A third option is also available and that is EVO fret wire that is harder than traditional nickel silver fret wire, has a gold hue/color to it, but is not as hard as stainless fret wire. In this instance the third choice was welcomed by my client and it was also believed that the gold hue or color of the EVO wire would be a good match for the look and color of this old guitar.
Once the original frets were removed and the fretboard leveled removing all of the divots and visible wear new EVO fret wire was installed, dressed, and polished. The binding was also reglued.
Step one in replacing the brass nut was to clean up the nut slot, remove all of the old, dried super glue... and square things up and then make a new nut. 
Usually my clients find it interesting that my bone supply for nuts and saddles comes from a local market known for great products and service. However this time my client let me know that he is a vegan but that he would tolerate... a cow bone nut on his guitar in the interest of great tone...
I selected a piece of bone that was very amber in color and kept the shine on the nut down hoping to better match the patina and color of the rest of the guitar.
When my client picked-up his guitar 9 days after leaving it with me he was thrilled and said so a number of times. This is always the best part of repair work for me when a customer is very satisfied.
Although I forgot to take pictures of some of the other things that we did to this guitar it was an experience that I personally very much enjoyed.
