Difference 44mm or 46 mm Nut Width?

[Mrsecco]

Hello everyone, to get a lakewood m32 cp
I noticed two versions: 44mm or 46mm.
But not being very experienced I don't know how important it is and I don't know which is the best choice for me.
To play fingerstyle and play songs with a pick, a mix of both: which is better?
Also, if it comes in handy as information, I've been playing for years lx1a Martin Guitar, that is guitar little.
I have been training with this for quite a while but if I play with a yamaha fg800 which is much bigger I can still feel good.
Waiting for some advice, thanks

[rick-slo]

FWIW 44mm is more typical on flattop guitars and is closer the nut width of the other two guitars you mentioned.

[pieterh]

46 mm is quite wide in my opinion. All of my acoustic guitars are around 44, with the two Furch 6-strings at 43 (and they’re wonderful to play!).

[JonPR]

Personally, I prefer a wider nut for fingerstyle. My favourite (of the four guitars I own) in terms of ease of playing most pieces, folk/blues as well as classical, is an Aria nylon-string electro-acoustic, at 48mm - a happy medium between standard steel-string and classical 52mm.

For years I played a Guild F30, which is 42mm, but I increasingly found it too narrow for comfort when playing more advanced tunes using high fret positions with open strings (and I have quite slim fingers). I.e., those positions mean it's really hard to avoid touching the open strings when they move.
IMO, 44 or 45 is minimum, and for steel-string 46 would be ideal, especially if you have big hands. I looked for a 46 guitar a while back, but none of them spoke to me in terms of sound.
I now have a very sweet Yamaha LL11 - it's only 43 at the nut, but it sounds way better than any other guitar I tried and it was a lot cheaper than most of them too. I'm just being a lot more careful with my fretting...

In short, you really have to try both the 44 and 46 if you can, but I'd say 46 is safer. It's hardly too wide to be comfortable, unless you have very small hands, and gives more space to play with between the strings - more forgiving of slighly imprecise finger placement!

[Brent Hutto]

I agree with both previous responses

If your left hand is getting along fine with the LX1 then you'll probably do fine with the 44mm version.

But I do totally think a 46mm nut will make it easy to cleanly play some of the very precise left hand shapes you'll encounter in fingerstyle playing.

I really don't think there's any downside to a wider neck for a person's only guitar but if you have multiple guitars I can see why you might want them more similar under your left hand. For me personally, I like 'em as wide as I can get 'em because I have blobby fingers and sloppy technique!

[Silly Moustache]

Hi, the imperial conversion is 44 m/m = 1 & 23/32 i.e a pinch wider than the 1 & 11/16" "rhythm" neck originally designed for tenor banjo players converting to guitar in dance bands etc.

46 m/m = 1 & 13/16" which was the lower standard (1 & 7/8" being the standard for 000 and dread) for pre 1930s 12 fret Martins.

I find it ideal for me, but no-one can advise what is best for you, your style, and your hands.



https://youtu.be/sNc25RLn77E

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Mrsecco

Hello everyone, to get a lakewood m32 cp
I noticed two versions: 44mm or 46mm.
But not being very experienced I don't know how important it is and I don't know which is the best choice for me.
To play fingerstyle and play songs with a pick, a mix of both: which is better?
Also, if it comes in handy as information, I've been playing for years lx1a Martin Guitar, that is guitar little.
I have been training with this for quite a while but if I play with a yamaha fg800 which is much bigger I can still feel good.
Waiting for some advice, thanks

Hi Mrsecco
I'd guess they are the equivalent of 1¹¹⁄₁₆" and 1¾" string spacing.

Typical of people who build in metric measurements, when they convert to Imperial they like to convert to decimals rather than fractions.

Seagull's (and other Godin built guitars) list their nearly 44mm as 1.72" and the strings are spaced exactly the same as 1¹¹⁄₁₆".

They actually build models with 1.72", 1.8" & artist models (and 12 string) with 1.9" nuts. The actual string spacings are

• 1¹¹⁄₁₆",
• 1¹²⁄₁₆" (1 ¾")
• 1¹³/₁₆"

An email to Lakewood would probably answer it for you.

As a teacher I can tell you that over the 40 years I taught, beginner students mostly showed up with 1¹¹⁄₁₆" nut, but played my 1¾" nut guitars just fine. I played their guitars while they played mine at every lesson for a couple minutes (I was monitoring the condition of their guitars).

And my advanced students, when they commissioned guitars, all did so with the 1¾" nut.

We occasionally hear from a player here in the forum who cannot adapt to 1¾" nut from 1¹¹⁄₁₆" but it's really rare. We're talking ⅟₁₆" difference in string spacing at the nut. There is another difference in that some acoustics have the strings spaced at the saddle ⅛" wider than others, which according to some players actually makes it easier to fingerstyle.

Hope you get the answers you need to decide…