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How do you get the nut to hold on to its slot? On my guitars, the nuts are held to the fingerboard on its side, but there's nothing on the other. I can't get a proper snug fit since well there's only one wall to support it against. When I put it on and string it on so I can file it while on the guitar, it always slides one way or another, and I can't really do my work. How do you get it to hold, if possible?

You can see it a bit here.

no input, but the more i think of it, the more i am sure that the one that named the guitar nut a nut had a twisted sense of humor..

(see my sig)carry on

my girlfriend usually takes care of that issue.

I don't know if I'm totally correct, but I usually get the nut situated, then use woodglue to hold it in permanently, and then do the nutwork. On the occasion that it's screwed up and I need to do it over, I'd just bap it out with a punch and hammer.

You don't need a lot of wood glue, just enough to make it solid.

That's pretty much how i'd do it; if i was in rush (usually am) I'd use a couple of tiny drops of super glue, but you have to be really careful!

I tend to cut the nut so that it is a really snug fit and doesn't need anything to hold it in place.

One tip, courtesy of Wm.Cumpiano and Jon Natelson (any aspiring guitar makers must have their book) is to use a pencil sawn in half lengthways and run across the top of the frets to mark the line on which the lowest point of the fret slots sit. You can use this as a guide to rough out the slots off the guitar, then install the nut and finish the job in situ.

Another tip, for finishing the job (I forget where this came from) is to use feeler gauges stacked to the height of the fret to stop you accidentally filing the slot too low. This is really useful when you are learning and risk going one stroke of the file too far...

Oh and another one; I use quot;Flairquot; superglue, really low viscosity stuff. I fit some microbore teflon tubing and use it as an applicator. When i'm ready to fix the nut in place I just apply a drop to the front wall where the nut butts against the fingerboard and let capillary action do the job. I don't do the back edge as the one side is usually enough and if you ever need to remove it there is less risk of splitting the back end off if it's not glued.

Yeah, the reason why I'm asking this is because I want to do the feeler gauge method. I'll just glue it in. The problem for me is that I don't have much to clean the slot so I'd rather only glue it when it's sure to be right, but should I glue it now it'd make life much easier. Thanks for convincing me!
Octavedoctor you're on a helping spree today haha :P thanks to you and GJ and everyone else.