1st Ukulele Factory Blem Mango Kala - Nut glued at an angle

Hey folks,

I picked up a factory blem Kala Mango uke for quite cheap on ebay - the only thing listed wrong with it was the finish blem on the bottom right of the body. However the nut is glued rather sloppily and at an angle, which I think is affecting the intonation somewhat. How would I go about taking it off and then re-attaching it??

The action is pretty high too but I can file down the saddle when the strings are off...



While this is my first uke I have played and from time to time worked on my guitars for the last 5 years or so and feel confident enough to attempt the work myself.

Your advice and help would be very much appreciated!
Harrison

With the strings off, put a block of wood on the fretboard up against the nut and give the block a tap with a hammer. It should pop right off. To fasten it back on I use a very small drop of carpenter's glue.

Is the fretboard end cut straight across? If not, you've got a tougher fix.

This is an unfortunately common problem as I've had several fixed by local luthiers. Its not an expensive fix.

Anthony

Oh man... Ok I took the nut out, turned out the actual slot was a bit skew, so I filed it flat, took out all the dried glue etc and glued the nut back in as straight as I could. It now seems much straighter than it was previously. I also filed the saddle down slightly to bring the action lower.

But....... The intonation now on the first 2 frets seems much worse than it was before! I'm really at a loss as to why that would be... Please advise friends? Thanks you.

I bought a Kala with a weird angled nut. I didn't bother trying to straighten it out because the intonation wasn't that bad. If the intonation ever bugs me enough to try and fix it I would leave the angle and adjust the intonation just as I would a uke with a straight nut and intonation issues. Deepen / fill in the slots and tweak the saddle.

Maybe re-glue the nut back where it was and try to fix the intonation that way?

Ok, here's an proper update:

I was completely wrong about the intonation being worse, sorry - just jumped to the wrong conclusion. It is in fact a whole lot better!

The reason I thought it went worse is 2 fold:

1) My tuner was not set to chromatic but to Uke so it was only looking for the 4 notes :wallbash:

2) The strings are still pretty new and were stretching so that worked with the tuner to confuse my ears and brain!!

The intonation is now pretty much spot on chaps, thanks for the help along the way :shaka:

I'm glad it worked out for you. Just for future reference, filing the fretboard back isn't always the right answer. The correct answer MAY have been to fill the gap forwards(or your may have needed to split the difference). To know which way to go your need to measure the scale length of the instrument and use a fret position calculator to see where the nut(zero fret) should be placed.

Anthony

Sometimes, I have had to add little shims of plastic or wood just below the nut, under the strings. I carve down popsicle sticks or plastic from combs because it's what I have.
Once you hear an instrument with proper intonation, everything else sounds terrible. :]
I don't know how people can play those cheap things - I examined a Makala once and the first few frets were off by half a semitone! Not even remotely playable.