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I would like to start off by saying I'm new to lutherie. I am in the process of putting the finishing touches on my first instument, a 000 kit from stewmac. After stringing it up, I noticed that the notes especially on the first couple frets are a little sharp. If I tune it with a capo on the first fret, everything sounds fine. I'm guessing the distance between the saddle and the nut is incorrect. I'm guessing the distance should be less. I'm thinking the best solution might be to remove the neck shave a little off the heel and re-install it. Does this sound like the way to go or is there a better solution?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Ben

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- Ben Pak
North Wales, Pa.

Well, I might be confused, but it seems to me that, if the notes are sharp, the neck may already be too short for the fingerboard that you installed. You need to find out where the frets should be, and then consider alternatives, such as a new fingerboard.

Easy problem to solve The problem is not the fretboard the problem is the nut. Or to be more correct likely the filing of the nut. If the string break point is not exactly at the edge of the nut or of the nut is not dead flush with the fretboard you have effectively lengthened the scale in the open position but when you capo at the first you eliminate the nut from the equation and all is fine. That tells you right off the bat tht the problem is forward of the capo or peghead side of the capo so that leaves only the nut.

Look the nut over carefully make sure the edge is flush and at a 90 to the fretboard. Make sure the slots peak at the fretboard edge of the nut and that there is no string binding in the slot prior to the fretboard edge of the nut.

Your nut height is probably way way too high. How did you set the height (or depth, depending on how you look at it) of the nut slots?

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Thank you all for your insights. It sounds like it's not going to be hard to fix.



David,
The nut hight started out at about 1/8" and then I filed slots into until the action came down low enough to make it playable. I thought this would get me into the ballpark and then I could fine tune it (Admitedly, I was a bit overanxious to hear how it sounded). Do you have any advice so I can either fix it or make a new one the correct way?

Thanks,

Ben

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- Ben Pak
North Wales, Pa.

There was a discussion of this a short while ago - I'm not sure reading through it would add more or less confusion though.

http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=15870

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

With what you just said about the 1/8 string height at the nut it is more than possible that the nut is high. However the most common error for new builders is to slightly fill the break point back into the nut. But what really has me scratching my head is if you intonated in its current state. I assume you meant you brought open-12 harmonic and 12th fretted in to pitch with each other. With a nut issue I would have expected you to have problems with maintaining pitch between open and 12th fretted. In other words if open and 12th harmonic were in tune with each other and the nut high or filled back causing open scale to be long I would have expected 12 fretted to be out by more than just a few cents.

There is no doubt that the problem lies in the nut but two key lessons here is that there is no point to initonate till you have the basic set-up right (ie string height and relief) and the second is that if you are unable to bring all three points into good alignment it is telling you there is a problem. For example the fact that when you eliminated the nut from the tuning and all was good, that told you that you have an issue in the overall scale length that in the open position ie the nut. If it had been the other way around then the issue would have been more complex to isolate but the info would be telling you the problem lies in the fretboard

If you are just starting out, you may want to try a trick I learned from Graham McDonald for setting the string height at the nut.
Cut a piece of standard printer paper about 3/8" wide & a few inches long. At one end, fold it over at about 1/2 from the end. This gives you a "go / no- go" feeler guage.
Capo the strings firmly between 2nd & 3rd fret, then set the string height so a single layer of paper will just slide under the string at the first fret & two layers of paper won't fit.
Sounds a bit crude, but it works a treat!
This setup will likely cure your intonation problem.

Just incase someone may miss undersand the feeler gauged (folded paper) use between thestring and the fret and not the fretboard.

Wow! Thank you all so much for providing me with so many options. There is truly a wealth of information here.

Thanks,

Ben

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- Ben Pak
North Wales, Pa.