My nut fell off

Lanark

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I was in the middle of changing strings when I noticed that the nut had popped off. I'll be wanting to glue that back down, I think.

What is the preferred glue for accomplishing this?
(assuming that superglue is not an option for something that might need to be removed or replaced in the future for some reason)
 
at least you have 1 more left.
instead of superglue, i'd seek immediate medical attention.
 
Come on guys, don't kick a man when his nut is down.

How about using a dab of relatively harmless glue like wood glue or perhaps some of the simple hobby/allround glue you have lying around? The most important thing is to keep it in place, right?

Just don't drench the surface to be glued or else your nut will start leaking all over your neck. Pardon my French.
 
found this thread

I just got back with some rather stinky Titebond liquid hide glue and I'm waiting my half hour for it to initially dry.
Tried clamping with with my Quik Grip, but it was knocking not sitting exactly right because of the curve. Got it snugged up as tight as I can. Between a thin layer of glue and string tension I should be doing Ok.

Main thing is trying not to make a mess and do something ugly. This is my nice uke.
 
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I was in the middle of changing strings when I noticed that the nut had popped off. I'll be wanting to glue that back down, I think.

What is the preferred glue for accomplishing this?
(assuming that superglue is not an option for something that might need to be removed or replaced in the future for some reason)

Lanark,
All kidding aside, I have not followed the links to the other threads above. I don't know what kind of ukulele you have but the fact that the nut is no longer glued in is not necessarily a bad thing. Do you know for a fact that it was glued on in the first place?

I've built a few ukes myself and I purposely don't glue the nuts in. If the ukulele is built with the proper break angle at the headstock there will be sufficient downward pressure to keep the nut in place when tuned to pitch. The nut should not be sloppy though. It should be snug and should stay in if your turn the uke over without strings on it. But even if it did fall out when doing so as long as there isn't any movement back and forth in the scale length direction there shouldn't be any problem with intonation.

One of the benefits of not gluing the nut in is that, if you desire, you can have a nut that is slotted for high G and another that is slotted for the thicker low G. This is not necessary in all cases though. I mean, I have ukes that only have one glued in nut and I can change from high to low G without any buzzing or problems. But I have had a situation with some ukes that required the slot to be widended and then when going back to high G there was a buzz.

So, I'm not sure what the moral is to my story but I wouldn't get too uptight about having to glue it back in. If you do glue it in you can use just a small drop of superglue at the front of the nut where it meets the fret board. It will hold it secure but will allow it to be removed with a small wrap with a fret hammer and small block of wood if need be.
Good luck,
 
I wouldn't get too uptight about having to glue it back in
This is kind of the gist of my post as well. It does not seem to be common though to leave the nut without any form of adhesive, right? I could imagine that you have to take a little bit more care when restringing. Any idea what kind of glue is used normally to keep the nut in place?

/edit: a drop of superglue. Sorry I read over that part. A hard glue sounds like good advice indeed, so you can 'break' it off with a slight tap.
 
I've had a couple of ukes in the past (can't remember what brands they were...this was a while ago) that didn't have the nut glued down and like Dom said, the string tension was enough to hold em in place...it never caused me any problems
 
It does not seem to be common though to leave the nut without any form of adhesive, right? I could imagine that you have to take a little bit more care when restringing.]

I didn't really make myself clear in my previous post. Some ukuleles have the nut just resting on the neck/headstock and are glued on to hold them in place. When I was referring to having minimal or no movement back and forth via the direction of the length of the fretboard I was referring to the method of construction that uses a peghead overlay which creates a channel or groove that the nut sits in, similar to the way the saddle sits in its slot. If the slot is such that the nut is snuggly in place there is no problem or trick to re-stringing. But in the case of a nut that is just sitting on top then it must be glued to keep it in position.

And to actually answer the question above. 99% of the production ukes will most likely have the nut glued in. Most of the ukes with nuts that are not glued in will come from the custom builders. That's just a guess on my part. There are other builders that frequent this site, such as Aaron Oya, who may chime in and provide a valuable opinion.
 
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It was glued in. I do know that. Just a very thin coat to hold it in place. There was just an eensy sheen of residue on the nut itself.
I thought about just letting string tension hold it in place. I figured that wouldn't be much of a problem, but I also had been doing my restringing on our bed and after I noticed it was missing it took me way too long to try and find where the nut had gone to. I figure glued back is probably safer in the long run, since I'm really happy with the action of this ukulele (it's the Kanile'a built Lanakai LK-1C) and I'd like to keep it the way it is.

I used Titebond liquid hide glue (as recommended by a couple of luthier sites and a thread here) that should pry off with a little bit of steam should the thing need replacing or repositioning. I worried that superglue might take a chunk of something with it if it had to be removed later. (I'm kind of a scaredy baby about stuff like that.)

And I do tend to remove all the old strings at once before restringing. Mostly because it's easier to wipe off the dust and detritus that collects under the strings up by the bridge. Just how I roll...

Giving it a quick tune morning and it's as good as ever and sounding sweet with new strings
 
I used Titebond liquid hide glue (as recommended by a couple of luthier sites and a thread here) that should pry off with a little bit of steam should the thing need replacing or repositioning.

Glad you got it strung up and everything worked out great.

Just a side note regarding the hide glue. If you are talking about the glue in the following link http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1409487 this is not the glue you want to use if you were to build or construct an ukulele. I have not used it personally, but am just sharing what I've heard from some of the really good luthiers. The only hide glue good for building ukuleles is the kind you mix in a hot pot thingy as needed during the build. It works great but the shelf life is very short. As I understand it, the problem with the commercial product in the link above is that it has so much additivie in it to extend shelf life that it defeats the beauty/benefits of using it.

This is all irrelevant in your case because using a little of this to put on your nut is no problem at all.
 
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