Official Luthiers Forum!

I know Dave Bland uses the Buzz Feiten system on his guitars. I have read and have used on two guitars to date to just cut the distance between the front of the fret board and the first fret short by 1/32". It worked out great on the first guitar I did it on, not finished the second.

The reason I bring this up is because I am realy thinking about making my own fret slot templetes for the table saw and wondering what you who do this and cut your own slots do with the template.

I seam to remember Mario does this, but I'm not sure.

Anyone else?

_________________
My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

I do as you describe for classicals -- 1/32" at the nut, plus 0.060" setback at the saddle. This works great for classicals, but the steel string is an entirely different animal.

Best,

Michael

_________________
Live to Play, Play to Live

The saw cut at the nut end of the fingerboard in itself shortens the board by half the width of it's kerf

I shortened mine by around .6mm. on the bass and a little less on the treble , although the " B " likes a bit more !.

KiwiCraig

_________________
CRAIG LAWRENCE of AUSTRALIA
_____________________________________________

I make compensated nuts for my guitars and octave mandolins.. How much I remove from the fingerboard depends on the scale, and the kinds of strings I use. The heavier the strings, the more compensation, and the shorter the scale- ditto.
I learned what I know from an excellent article by Stephen Delft that can be found over on the MIMForum. It explains everything very well, and it really opened my eyes to it. Through my own experimentation I found the way it works best for me.
If you want to play around with it, you can take small slivers of wood or bone- even toothpicks work- and slip them in front of the nut under the string. Try not to raise the string up any higher than the nut slot does, you don't want to change the action there. then using a tuner, re-tune the guitar and notice what is happening. Mess around with different widths of shims and you'll begin to see what is going on and why it works.

_________________
Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Hi guys, if i understood well, you cut the distance between the front of the nut and the first fret short of 1/32" ? Do you do this to compensate for the kerf's width at the first fret so that all the other fret kerfs will be cut dead centered ? hope my question makes any sense, i bought a blade from Shane and just wanna make sure i get this very important task clear.Tia

Regards

Serge

Serge the thinking behind compensation at the nut is similar to the reasoning for compensation of the saddle. I can't give you the entire skinny on the idea, but the basics is that the compensation at the saddle is not entirly accurate enough and over time, folks have come up with a couple of methods for compensating the nut to acceive a better intonated instrument.

Here is one article on nut compensation.

there are several discussions in the MIMF liabrary on compensated nuts, I just wanted to get some other opinions from those here at the OLF.

And if you could make that ASAP, PDQ, that would be OK.

_________________
My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

I just finished a neck with the first three frets compensated (.025", .015"
and .008") rather than the nut, and am pretty happy with it. This project
was primarily an electronics experiment, so those were some rather
arbitrary numbers I put about 10 seconds thought in to as I was throwing
together a neck. I also progressively added about one to two thousandths
compensation for each fret from the 15th and up.

If I felt motivated to put a little more thought in to it I'm sure some more
precise numbers could be had, but this quick approximation seems to
work quite well.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Thanks Proud Daddy Rod, i saved the thread and the page you linked, will have a look at it later today after coming back from Lee Valley. What does PDQ MEAN, is it please deliver quickly ? Please don't quit?

Serge

PDQ - preaty darn quick, is what I've always heard it to mean. I like your second one, please don't quit.

_________________
My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Here is a quick-and-dirty picture of the nut on the guitar that I play most of the time. You can see how this works- Rod, thanks for pointing to the article from Delft, everything I know about it I gleaned from that article. I suggest anyone inerested in this should read it, in fact print it out for your reference because you'll use it! That would save us having to write it all out again here.
I remove as much as 3/32" from the end of the fretboard, and then cut back each string as it's needed. You can see how I did that in this picture.

_________________
Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Very cool article you linked here Rod, I think I need to try this on a guitar when I get a chance.
Evan

_________________
http://www.NewYorkGuitarRepair.com

I compensate about 1/32" at the nut, on fanned frets especially it allows me to get them to play in tune up in the 22-24 fret range. It works on standard guitars as well but it really shines on fanned frets. Mike Doolin does the same thing, I do move the saddle slightly and then when setting up spend a good amount of time checing intonation on the 12th and below until it's right, I use a VSII for that operation. So far I've had no complaints

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Compensating the nut has little effect on higher frets. It's mainly for the first few frets, and this is what makes it different and separate from anything that goes on with bridge compensation.
To begin with nut compensation, you need to start this way- place a capo on the first or second fret, and THEN set your bridge intonation to be correct 12 frets away from the capo position. Get the guitar as in-tune as possible at this point....
THEN remove the capo, and check the tuning with a tuner..re-tune the open strings to make them perfect if you need to. Now play the notes on each string on the first, second and third frets into the tuner and see if they are playing true, and if they are not the problem is at the NUT and not at the bridge. You will probably get some out of tune notes, and that can be taken right out with nut compensation.
The first time I did this I was amazed!Mark Swanson38745.7883217593

_________________
Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Here's something I saw awhile ago. I haven't tried it myself yet, but I'm tempted. It basically accomplishes the trick of shortening the distance from the front of the nut to the 1st fret by inserting what is basically a zero fret in front of the nut. Called the "eNut". I think it could be done by just getting some extra tall fret wire and cutting off the tang.

http://www.monteallums.com/Stretch_Tuning_DW.html

CrowDuck

_________________
Chris Nielsen
Soquel, CA.

Mr. David Collins , Thankyou for your very informative post, I consider myself very fortunate to have you here with us on this forum.
I had considered moving the frets as you have done, but was unable to come up with a method of accuratley doing so.
Could you please inform us how this is achieved. My thoughts are that ,because the bass strings require slightly more compensation than the treble, the frets being moved would have to be moved on a slight angle to favour a shorter bass speaking length.

Kindest regards , KiwiCraig

   

_________________
CRAIG LAWRENCE of AUSTRALIA
_____________________________________________

Craig, I'm quite flattered by your impression of me as an expert in this
field, I fear you may be overestimating my expertise. I've probably spent
more time studying temperaments and intonation than most, but would
certainly stop short of considering myself an authority.

You could drive yourself mad trying to set the perfect intonation in to
your nut, frets and saddle, but it will never be perfect. That's not to say
that conventional design is the best - the style of compensated nut that
Mark uses is wonderful and certainly helps chords in the lower frets. If
you were trying to set intonation for each string in the frets however, your
frets would have to zig-zag all over the place. And it would of course all
change if the owner decided to switch from the D'Addarios you may have
set it up with, to something like DR's.

It's all a compromise and you have to round things off somewhere. There
is no silver bullet, and many builders use different approaches with
different advantages.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I'm back from Lee Valley, my credit card has a belly ache!

Thanks a million Rod, your reply was PDQer than mine, i appreciate it friend! I'll try to learn that ASAP!

Great thread everyone!

Serge

Yes David, I have in fact seen a picture of someones effort in doing just that ! Little bits of frets all over the place ! (not sure who it was) Must have taken a long long long time. It also looked quite bazaar.

You are also a very modest man, being a former lecturer in luthery and other notable achievements. Thanks for your input.

Regards KiwiCraig

_________________
CRAIG LAWRENCE of AUSTRALIA
_____________________________________________