View Single Post
  #57  
Old 02-24-2012, 06:17 PM
the.ronin the.ronin is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 407
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by charles Tauber View Post
You're making this much more difficult than it needs to be. I suggest reviewing the relevant section of Basic Guitar Set-up 101 or similar reference. It's a simple procedure. Really.
Ok so I went back and reread secion 2 and I completely forgot about setting a straight edge on the 1st and 2nd fret to properly gauge the height of the 1st. I’m embarrassed to admit I was just eyeballing it. I have been using your method of using the gauges as a guide for how deep to file the slots.

As mentioned, I’ve run out of guitars to set up but the awful nut job I did on the Martin has been gnawing away at me. I may bight the bullet and get another nut for it and try again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by slinco View Post
You mentioned a few posts ago you were not to confident with your nut slot layout procedure. One of the tools I bought is Stew Mac's String Spacing Rule. I haven't pressed it into service yet, but it's a very nicely designed tool - you might want to look into it. Another tool I got is their Nut Slotting Gauge. It's probably overkill, but it works great and it's way cool (I love cool tools).
Thanks, slinco … it’s always nice to see that I’m not alone. I think Erlewine’s is pretty awesome but so much of it is geared towards electric that I use it more as a reference than anything else. If you have time, I would love to see photos of the work you did on your Recording King. And I’m also waiting on a set of 18:1 Sta Tites to replace the Grover Rotomatics on my Big Baby … great minds think alike LOL!!

I actually checked out those very same tools. One thing I’ve noticed with the learned luthiers we are fortunate to have on this forum is that they really know how to improvise and/or save money on tools. So when I first embarked on this, I told myself to try to get as inexpensive a tools as possible. The gauged Stew Mac files are the only things I did not skimp on. But yes, it is awfully tempting to get at least some of the goodies they’ve got that seem to make life a whole heck of a lot easier.

I did have a question on the string spacer ruler tool …

The reason I go back to the original nut to mark off my string spacing is to try and capture any angle on the nut itself. To recap, I take the old and new nut and hold them together front to front and mark off where the slot is on the front side. I then hold them back to back and do the same.

I had read that you don’t want string slots to be perfectly straight. Ideally I guess you’re supposed split the difference of the angle from the nut to the string peg head presumably to allow smoother movement of the string. Is this really that critical? It would appear that the Stew Mac ruler would do straight lines without any angle.

Of course, it’s not as if my method is really that accurate. Given the shape of a nut, I’m often having to just eyeball where the string slot should be on each side. With the classical guitar nut, it was a lot easier since those nuts are almost entirely squared off and don’t have the curvature of steel string nuts – at least on my Cordoba C5.
__________________
GUITARS »» ESTEVE 7SR | APARICIO AA52 | SAEZ MARIN 715 | TAYLOR GC3 | MARTIN D-1GT | GIBSON LPMM
UKULELES »» KAMAKA HF-3 | KOALOHA KTM-00-R | KANILEA K-1 C SF | KOALOHA KCM-00 | OHANA SK50-MG
Reply With Quote