Göldo Zero Glide ZGZS7F Nut

My best T-Style guitar is a custom build, with specs made to my own taste, hence my very own dream guitar, which plays, sounds and feels like I always wanted a guitar to.

I bought the Göldo Zero Glide (Tele) nut kit out of curiosity, and kept it there for months before finding the courage to try put it on.

Then, when I felt bold enough to risk, I've set to spend a couple of hours for watching videos, figuring out what makeshift tools I could find around the house, and actually do the job in one single gulp.

I had some serious expectations, always found the zero-fret concept absolutely superior in engineering terms, but I was skeptical the Zero Glide take on the subject was really as good as the real thing.

Well... it is. It's all the best a zero-fret fingerboard can deliver, without having to order it custom made, and without renouncing the neck and fingerboard you already have and love.

I've installed it myself with the most basic DIY tools, and my dream guitar improved beyond what I may ever expect: intonation in the first three positions, attack, sustain, clarity, structure, consistency of tone between open- and fretted strings... it's all there as promised, in hardly two hours in total, spent between training, tooling and working on it.

Even the one thing that did not look proper to my eye, the slots in the bone nut, which I found out being genuine bone, after a few minutes' swipe with a standard nail polishing pad now looks perfectly smooth, polished and without hard edges.

I'll soon install one in all my other instruments... it's too good to be true, and shall I want to sell any instrument to someone who prefers less intonation, less attack, less sustain, less clarity, less structure... I'll simply replace the Zero Glide with the original nut in a couple of minutes!

What's not to love in this? Hopefully it'll sell millions of pieces, so that, possibly, one day more and more manufacturers will be offering more and more of their own stock guitars with zero fret.

I like taking cheap guitars and seeing how good they can get with a little TLC and minor (and sometimes not so minor) modifications. I bought the Harley Benton ST-70 Black Paisley, and thought it a good opportunity to try the Zero-Glide nut,
After levelling, crowning and polishing the frets, the nut was fairly straight forward to fit, and after trying the various zero-fret sizes I ended up with the highest one which seemed perfect, unsurprisingly as the frets were new and unworn.

In use, the tuning stays well in, even after a fair bit of whammy use, and the open chords sound great to my ears, acoustically and through an amp.

The only one thing I have noticed (and hence not 5 stars given) is that when bending, the strings do move sideways suddenly (but only slightly) on the zero-fret which you can hear when playing quietly through an amp, but more importantly when playing at 'normal' levels, I can't hear the strings acoustically, but I can feel the string tweak slightly as I bend.
It's not too bad when you get used to it. I may try some nut sauce to see if that helps, but it's something to be aware of. I would say on an acoustic this would be a problem, for me at least.

I was trying to install this on an American Standard Stratocaster, and no matter what I did, it would not fit. I then tried it on a G&L Comanche, and again, same problem. I thought perhaps I was doing it wrong, since the instructions are not that clear, so I went to YouTube and found the manufacturers channel and their installation instructions. The only thing I could find online was for acoustic guitars. If you are installing it on an acoustic, the process is pretty simple and straightforward. But on a Fender or similar type with a slot for the nut, it is very difficult! It's still sitting in my toolbox to maybe attempt it again at some point when I have more time. But for now, I couldn't get it to fit. I probably should have returned it.
The string guide seemed to be of high quality, as well as the zero fret itself. So the parts are really good. If it fits for your guitar, you should get a good long use from it. For me, for now, I will stick to Tusq.

A zero fret gives your guitar more accurate intonation and better tuning accuracy and stability. This Glido is a standard nut replacement that adds a zero fret and also offers you four fret heights so that you can more accurately adjust string height.

I would suggest using this in tandem with Graph Tech PS8001-00 height-adjustable bridge saddles to give you complete control over the action height on your guitar (once you have the neck relief set with the truss rod).

Pre-slotted versions are available for Fender and Gibson necks and you can also have an unslotted version to cut yourself or give to your luthier to set up.

I had it fitted to an American Standard Stratocaster, and I really liked what it was doing for me, an improvement in sound for open strings and a lower action overall.

I decided to change to a set of 13 to 56 D'addario Strings and I needed to open up the slots in the nut (or should I say string guide?) my nut files would need to be 10 times finer to not break the bone used for the string guide.

Given how much of it is removed to accommodate the zero fret wire, it really should be manufactured from a material similar to the Tusq nut to enable opening up, or the slots made wider, as the difference would not be significant with a lighter string gauge given there is a zero fret in place.