Bone Nut for the Silvertone Harmony Baritone Ukulele

Getting close to finally taking this ukulele for a test ride!  I played its sister in the House of Musical Traditions recently and really liked it. 

But back to mine.  I have this big hunk of bone to cut a nut out of.  You can see it doesn't fit the slot (yet), but it will shortly.  Through the miracle of the interwebs, it will be transformed!

Poof.

A little sanding, a little filing, and it fits the slot.  The slot is really goofy - it's square at the fretboard end, but slanted wide at the top to narrow at the bottom on the opposite side.  My guess is it was hacked up when the last nut was put on.

I don't want to cut any more out of the neck to square it up, so I just shaped the back side (hee hee I said back side) to suit.

Now, ve lay out ze string spacing.

I measured the bass and treble string slots from the edge of the fingerboard - about 10/64s.  Then I can use those markings...

...to lay out the other two strings.  This is my amazing string ruler from Stew-Mac.  You make your outer marks, then find a pair of slots on the ruler that line up, then use the appropriate marks in between for the other slots.

I've used it for guitar and now for ukulele.  Makes this job so easy.

Then I start each slot with the razor saw.  I'll do the final filing and shaping of the nut once it's strung up.  So that's the next job.