[BlueStarfish]

Hi Kevin,

I actually tried what you suggested (putting a new nut onto my Yamaha silent steel string). The new nut has 1.5" string spacing like you'd find on a typical 1.75" nut. Gryphon did the work for me and did a very nice job. They did exactly what I asked (after getting past their initial skepticism) and the quality of the work was good.

For me overall the new nut made a marked improvement in playability. I just don't get along with narrower string spacing and could not play accurately on that guitar before putting on the new nut. That said, there ends up being less space between the 1st and 6th strings, and the end of the fretboard. So it's easier to push the string off the fretboard entirely if you are not careful. Moving from light to medium strings helped a lot with that -- more tension in the strings. Additionally I'm not a string bender, but if you are a frequent string bender it may not be ideal. I'd still prefer to have a factory model with a 1.75" nut and 25.4" scale, but that's not available so this is a workable alternative for me. I use that guitar primarily as an easily packable, low-volume practice guitar when traveling -- so am not particularly concerned about how it sounds amplified into a PA.