Plus, there's a story about another Gio I owned. So even though I have better guitars, this is kind of like a trophy. At the end of the lockdown, the new Gio became my emotional support instrument. I like it even better than the old one. The new one has a finish similar to Gibson SG's with a black pickguard on a cherry red body. I wanted to see if some upgrades could really change the performance of a guitar. Players may argue that its not worth it to mod a cheap product and some have asked, :"Would you put a Porsch engine in a Ford Pinto?" Of, course not. But you might spend just a little bit more if you wanted to be a mechanic.
I bought a Proline graphite nut first. Graphite lubricates the guitar strings and keeps the instrument in tune better that the stock plastic nuts found on most cheap guitars. I also bought a nut holder to keep the nut in place while I sanded the bottom to the appropiate size. I had to do this twice as I sanded the first nut too much. I knew this would probablty be the most difficult upgrade and I wouldn't even consider doing the other upgrades if I couldn't complete this task. However, I did an awesome job.
But you can't exactly make the copper tape fit to the walls of these tiny tunnels. I tried a few different things. Then I got an idea. I sent my wife to Wendy's to get a drink and to ask for an extra straw. I cut the straw into two pieces and wrapped them in copper tape. I used tweezers to pull them through the tunnels. I'm not a smart person, especially when it comes to engineering so I'm pretty proud of figuring out this solution.