Quote:
Originally Posted by arie
what's the reasoning of checking action over the first fret by capo'ing at the third?
|
Well, as Charles has mentioned, “the physical thing that is responsible for the height of the strings at the nut is the depth of the nut slot as measured from the top of the fingerboard to the bottom of each slot in the nut,” and the action at the first fret is really just a “derived consequence” of this and “cannot be adjusted directly.”
So Charles has his method of directly setting the “height of the strings at the nut” (by adding a few thousandths to the height of the 1st fret), but Frank’s method does this indirectly by capo’ing at the 3rd fret, thus allowing you to use the capo’ed string as a straight-edge.
I think the “reasoning” is that the triangulation that results from bringing the string over the 2nd fret and then just barely clearing the 1st fret gives you just those few thousandths at the nut that Charles is adding directly.
Anyway, that’s my take.
What I appreciate about all the responses in this thread is that I now have a lot of different perspectives that were shared on this issue (a present issue for me!) and thus a lot of ways to “cross check,” so to speak.
.