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Why do some guitars have zero fret?

A zero fret is exactly what it sounds like: an actual honest-to-god fret, plunked right where the nut usually calls it quits. And it changes the whole story of how your open string gets its height and tone — in a way some builders and players will defend to the death.

On a normal nut, the string sits in a slot cut to a very specific depth, and that slot single-handedly decides your open string's height and, by extension, its tone. Cut it wrong, and you'll know. On a zero-fret setup, the nut gets demoted to traffic cop — it just spaces the strings apart and does zero (heh) height-determining work. The string instead rests directly on a fret, identical in profile to every other fret marching up the neck.

My own dreadnought — a Framus Texan built in West Germany sometime in the '60s — rocks a zero fret, and it was my personal introduction to this oddball little design. Honestly? I barely notice it day to day. But I did have to go to war with mine at one point. Everything I found online said it should sit about 0.010" proud of the other frets. Too low — I like my nut height closer to 0.020". So I pulled it, replaced it, and filed it to spec myself. Happy to do the same for yours.

Why builders bother, and what it costs them

The pitch is simple: the open string now behaves like a fretted note, because it's literally sitting on the same kind of fret with the same contact profile, instead of at a height dictated by whoever cut the nut slot that day. Some players and builders swear it evens out tone and feel between open strings and fretted ones. It also quietly erases one of the most common setup screwups — a nut slot cut too high or too low — since the zero fret standardizes that measurement for the whole neck.

The catch: a zero fret wears down exactly like every other fret, which means it's along for the same buzz-and-wear rollercoaster as the rest of your frets, and it needs replacing during a normal fret job instead of chilling untouched for decades like a real nut would. It's also rare enough that some players see it and assume something's broken, when really it's just a deliberate choice somebody made on purpose.

Should you actually care?

Not really — unless you're guitar shopping and want to know why the nut area looks a little off. It's a legit, intentional design decision with real logic behind it. Not a shortcut. Not a downgrade. Just a different way to skin the same cat.

Got a zero fret that's worn down or set wrong? Book Now for a free evaluation. I've replaced a few — including my own.