Nut slots - straight, angled or curved?

[Brian Evans]

Anything new under the sun on this topic? I was looking around on this and found nut slots belled out like the bell of a horn. Looked funny, but no break point to bind, just smoothly leaving the front edge of the nut. Thoughts? I guess there almost always should be a little break point as the string leaves the nut, for clarity of sound?

[Gordon Bellerose]

The way I have learned to shape the nut, is to have a straight, square edge on the fret board side. This is the clean break needed.
The string should lay in the smooth, round bottom slot, in contact with the bottom of the slot, almost across the width of the nut.

The headstock side should be rounded down, slowly losing contact with the string as it heads to the tuner. I also widen out the slot a bit, toward the headstock side.
The slot should only be a few thousandths wider than the string across the width, until that point.
It's a bit difficult to meet these requirements if the nut is narrow, like on a Fender. That's where my magnifying visor comes in!

I have seen nuts with slots much wider than the string. In my opinion, that looks sloppy and gives the string room to actually roll sideways in the slot.

Again, just my way of doing things.

I can be taught new things if someone has a better way.

[Dave Weir]

Frets aren't straight or square on the front edge, and they work fine. The string really doesn't vibrate much at the take off point. A nice straight front edge probably helps locating it properly. But I don't worry about that. I just make the slots slightly over sized, slightly curved, and then flip it upside down and install a zero fret.