Hello there, back again with another article for you! This time we will be looking at a very popular lubricant for your guitars by Big Bends Nut Sauce. Big Bends LLC is an American company located in Plainwell, Michigan and only focuses on manufacturing guitar cleaning and maintenance products.
Their most popular product is Nut Sauce which is a lubricant for guitar nuts, bridge saddles and hinges. However, they also feature a fretboard conditioner, guitar polish, a set of string sleeves and cleaning wipes. But in this article, I will be releasing a brief Big Bends Nut Sauce review for my visitors 🙂
What is Nut Sauce?
Nut Sauce is basically a lubricant that you can use on your guitar nut and guitar bridge saddles. It promises to solve tuning stability issues usually caused by guitar nuts.
Even for well-known brands, such as Fender American Standard Stratocaster, nuts may cause problems with tuning. This was exactly the reason I bought Big Bends Nut Sauce in the first place!
Unfortunately, there’s no information about what’s inside of it. According to their official website, it’s a cutting-edge lubricant for the nut, bridge, string trees and any pivot points of the bridge.
It’s very clean and safe to use lubricant products that won’t drip and leave no stain behind. They also mention that Nut Sauce is a fully synthetic product and does not contain any petroleum products.
Their claim also goes beyond the basic “less friction, better-tuning stability” principle. They also claim Nut Sauce will help increase sustain and harmonics!
Does Nut Sauce Really Work?
On my Fender American Standard Stratocaster, I have had this annoying problem with the nut. I even spent a lot of time preparing an article on “String Trees Demystified“, and thought it was the string tree causing annoying tickling noise when I used the tremolo bar.
I tried to detect where this sound came from and thought it was the Fender’s default string tree that caused this. Changing the string tree solved the issue temporarily, however, later on, I noticed it was the nut, particularly the high E string slot that was making that noise.
In that experiment, I exclusively used Big Bends Nut Sauce. But I must say I’m not really impressed. :/
I used to use pencils and would grind some of the graphite and apply this graphite dust to the nut. Since graphite layers can slide over each other due to weak forces between them, graphite can be used as a dry lubricant. The only drawback is that it looks a bit messy on the nut.
Is it really worth buying Nut Sauce?
My first impression was that I just bought a drop of vaseline-looking product in a syringe! They come in three different-sized syringes with an applicator.
Basically, you would have to pay €12,40 for 0.5ml, €24,90 for 1.5ml and €54 for 6ml.
Out of three options of Nut Sauces, 0.5ml is the best seller with over 330 user reviews, scoring 4.6/5. Followed by a 1.5ml version which has almost 100 user reviews, scoring 4.7/5. Very few people 6ml version.
Big Bends Nut Sauce Review
In my opinion, the company’s claims about Nut Sauce are a bit too over the top. It’s definitely a well-prepared and presented product, it doesn’t leave any stains behind, and it doesn’t drop.
And I believe it helps with reducing friction and it’s very easy to use. However, helping with sustain, overtones are a bit too much of a claim. It’s just a lubricant that will help reduce friction and that’s that! 🙂
At this price point, I would probably not buy this again and I will probably go back to using good old-fashioned pencils.
I think it’s still a great product if you are a luthier and service people with high-end guitars. In this case, you should always be able to provide options to your customers and deliver their instruments back without graphite stains on the nut. (Yes, some people are that picky!)
After having applied it to my Strat, I haven’t had any positive effects regarding sustain and overtones. In my case, it didn’t really solve that tickling noise caused by the nut.
As guitar players, we go mental with mojo and magic tricks. We always want to feel like we should justify our purchase and be a step ahead. 
However, at the end of the day, basic tuning issues are usually caused by the nut and particular headstock designs. Since we can not change these on our traditional Strats, Les Pauls, and SGs, we should just apply what is available at the moment and learn to live with it.
Nut Sauce is not going to kill the bank to try. So I encourage you to try one and see it for yourself. It will definitely help with some of the tuning issues. But don’t expect miracles!
I hope this has been an article that you find some value and insights for your purchases. Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
Osman Cenan Çiğil – cigilovic.com
