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I have built a quite a few guitars now with a 25" scale and all of the compensation is pretty much exact from guitar to guitar for each string. My latest guitar followed that trend except for the low E string, it is a full 1/8" further from the nut in order to intonate right. I probably would not have thought much of it except I was just about out of room to adjust the bridge. So, anyone had this problem before? I put a capo on the first fret and intonated to the 13th and it was in the normal spot. This would lead me to believe the string was not sitting on the front of the nut, but it looks fine. Could the string just be bad?

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John Thiessen
http://www.iszacguitars.com

John I am going to suggest the nut slot too and if you check it again and the string does indeed begin it's speaking length at the nut face then try replacing the string. It's pretty easy to not take off enough material behind the slot face so the string is actually getting cut off further back in the nut... Bad strings are far more common than I ever thought they were until I started working on guitars. If you are using the same brand, gauge etc. of strings that you are accustomed to on your other axes and this one's intonation is way different my money is on the nut slot or the string being bad. Lastly saddles are the other variable and often need to be cleaned up with a fret file of an appropriate size.

I checked the nut, it is fine (I re filed anyway just to make sure) Put a new string on and it still is weird. I guess it isn't a big problem, just weird. Every note is in tune, the nut to bridge is 25.25" though on a 25" scale, all my other guitars are at 25.125 or so and generally the low E and g string are in about the same spot. Not this guitar though. I also re-checked the intonation withe a capo on the first fret and it is not as I had mentioned in the first post. It matches up with the open intonation.

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John Thiessen
http://www.iszacguitars.com

what type of bridge is it? if it were a TOM it might possibly be that one of the saddles is facing opposite of the others. not likely but i suppose it could happen, if its every note is intonated and its stays that way with a capo, then i would not fret (pun) over it to much.

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~shad peters

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http://petersinstruments.blogspot.com/
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