Strange Nut Replacement Question

[J366]

alright, so, ive started to become addicted to this whole guitar thing...haha. The other night when cleaning out my basement, i found my dads old guitar. Its an old Silvertone 6 string acoustic, circa 1964. He pretty much told me thats its a peice. Its fairly battered, but it still has a wonderful sound (for what it is anyway). The only problem, (aside from some decent sized cracks on the edge of the facing, nothing too too serious) is that the nut was made of some kind of wood, and during all those years of playing, the first fret has essentially become the nut, thats how much its been worn down. So while fretted notes sound fine, any chord involving open notes sounds absolutely terrible. So, i have decided to replace the nut.

In my constant search for cheap or free materials, a strange thought came to me; would it be possible to make a nut from some kind of stone, or metal (other than what is commonly used)? (marble is what i had in mind, becuase of all the tile scraps around, but id use anything i could get my hands on)

Also, it there any particular method to removing the nut, or is it a standard, pop it off and out with a chisel affair? I figured i might as well ask because it seemed simple, but i really dont want to mess anything up if i can help it.

thanks for entertaining my strange ideas,

-Jesse

[erikbojerik]

Pop it off, chisel out any residual glue, and toss in:

bone

brass

Corian

graphite

ebony

...

[SwedishLuthier]

Tutorial:

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/A-NUTS.html

[J366]

Awesome, thats exactly the kind of thing i was looking for. Thanks a lot.

[Daniel Sorbera]

Link