[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Bushleague

Just wondering if you wrote that exactly the way you meant it? In the past IIRC you've said the 1.8 nut was similar to a 1 3/4. To me the 1.8 nut feels like its got more room than most of the 1 3/4 necks I've played, but I've never put a set of calipers to the strings myself.

I too have seen the 12 string thing done before, and its probably the cheapest method by far. Some of the new Martin and Taylor dreads have 1 3/4" nuts, I find the Martin neck in particular to be very nice.

Hi Bushleague…

I’ve never measured the fingerboard in mm at the nut (took their word as accurate), but I have measured the string spacing. On several Seagulls I measured, the 1.8” string spacing at the nut was identical to 1¾” spacing.

My reference for the 1¾” spacing was my Olson, Bashkin, Kronbauer, a Taylor and my VoyageAir VAOM-06. Variances were less than half of ⅟₆₄” which I attributed to using an under $20 micrometer.

Martin has had 1¾” nuts on/off again during the 20th century. I’m not sure about pre-1900s. I should do some research. And I’m interested in knowing what the earliest Martin fingerboard spacing was at the nut.

I’d be hard pressed to find a time Taylor didn’t offer Dreadnought models with 1¾” fingerboard. Maybe I needed to pay closer attention, but I’ve played a lot of Taylors over the years, and their go-to nut width was 1¾”. It set them apart from Gibson, and Martin.