I feel compelled to post a final installment on this thread in order to inform anyone who had been following it how the saga ended.
Until less than a week ago, I lived in Roseville, California – about a two-and-a-half hour drive from Gryphon Stringed Instruments (where one can find Frank :-) ).
I had gotten the action down at the first fret to the desired clearance by sanding the bone nut a bit. It happened the way that it usually does: initially, I was very cautious, so I did not take down nearly enough, and the clearance remained a bit too high.
Then, on a subsequent string change, I become impatient, so I took down too much.
Once again, this is how things like this normally transpire for me. :-)
I was able to rectify the situation by putting on a piece of gorilla tape as a shim, so everything was working fine.
But I didn't like all of that "buffer" material between the nut and the headstock (the wood shim, the gorilla tape), so, alas, I traveled down to Frank's place of employment, and placed the guitar in the hands of the master (or possibly I should write, "in the hands of one of the masters who post on this forum").
I can tell you this: Frank is not only a master of his craft, but he's also a prince of a guy.
He pointed out a string spacing issue on the nut (which I hadn't even noticed), so he dug out the shim (also took off the gorilla tape :-) ) and replaced the nut.
I have a 1 3/4" nut with the string spacing for a 1 11/16" nut, and I like to have more of the "pinched in" clearance on the high E side (lazy fretting hand, I guess).
Frank accommodated all of this perfectly for me.
He also mentioned some scratches near the nut on the headstock.
I confessed: "Yes, that was me – when I was trying to sand down the shim in a not-too-careful manner."
I remember that he said something like, "Maybe I can take care of that for you."
Well, he did a very nice job with that (I no longer have to put a thin piece of black striping tape across the headstock at the top of the nut :-) ).
And he would take no more than their standard charge for replacing a nut ($90) when, in fact, he did so much more than this.
(The person at the counter would not take more than this either -- just wouldn't.)
I would post pictures, but I'm traveling across the country to Florida, working simply with my iPhone.
One further point: I noticed later that day (when playing the guitar) that Frank also repaired another area on my headstock where I had nicked the finish during a string change. (I have been changing strings on a weekly basis for about 6 months.)
Once again, no charge.
I'd love to work in Frank's shop as an intern for about a month or so (for free -- of course!) in order to become reasonably grounded in these skills.
Thanks, Frank!
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