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How do you position your nuts?
All right, answers could be a little bit bawdy, but..
Do you cut the fretboard off at the template zero fret position, shortening the fretboard by half a kerf width?
Or leave that extra half a kerf length?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I have always done the half kerf philosophy. It's seemed to work for me.

Pat

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Pat

3/32" short, for nut compensation. I used to cut through the zero fret. Half a kerf short is better than nothing, but the B string is never quite right without full nut compensation.

Gently.



Yes. No issues with intonation. In fact, it might help intonation a smidge for the fingerboard to be that half-kerf short.

Half a kerf here.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

With a tug and a pull.

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I've always cut the the 0 fret slot, and then trued the end of the fingerboard to the fretboard side of the fret slot. Guess that translates to half a fret kerf....

And my name is Ball....

Dave

Another half kerfer here.

Thankfully gravity takes care of that for me.

Is that correctly typed?
3/32 I work out at 2.38 mm, that's almost 1/10", seems a lot?

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

One more half kerf here.

As a person cutting my fretboards on CNC, you guys are blowing my mind right now. Are you saying that I should be shortening the distance from nut to 1st fret slot by some amount? I don’t do this today. Should I be?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

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If you shorten the distance from the 0 fret to the 12th fret, won't this cause the saddle to be moved closer to the 12th fret as well, if you use 0 to 12 as a reference point for the distance from the 12th to the saddle? Or do you use the original 0 to 12 distance, before shortening the board, to determine the location of the saddle?
Asking for a friend.:>)

Hi Brad,
Cutting the first fret short is a simple way to add some compensation at the nut. It improves the compensation between frets 1 to 12 a little bit. There are ways to better compensate the nut, but they get somewhat tedious, and also take into consideration the type of strings the player uses.
James Taylor did a video on tuning a guitar (with the typical uncompensated nut) where he tunes the open strings slightly flat a different number of "cents", depending on the string, to make the guitar play more in tune with itself. It helps compensate for string stiffness which makes the upper partials play sharp and some "string stretch" caused by fretting. Using this reasoning, by shortening the nut 3 cents you could tune the high e to pitch and flat the b 3cents, flat the g 1cent, flat the D 5cents, flat the A 7cents, and flat the E 9cents. By slanting the nut as we do the saddle, a further reduction in the flatting of the strings could be achieved, and by moving the break point of each individual string a fully compensated nut can be made.
To shorten the nut by 3 cents for a 25.4 inch S.L. (645mm) you would cut the fret board short about .042" (1mm) or about 3/64inches. Unfortunately real world parameters can throw things off a bit from the theoretical so most of us just cut - it - short a bit so we can - cut things short - a bit.
Anyway - here is a link to Mr. Taylor's video of the method he uses to make his Olson guitar play the way he likes it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2xnXArjPts&t=66s

Hi guitarjtb,
The original scale length should be used to figure the compensation at the saddle - the 12th fret should remain in its original position.

I've been using James Taylor's method of tuning on stage for years. It works, especially if, as I do, you have to do a lot of key changes during each set.

I also do a bit of nut compensation, usually around 0.030".

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Yep. The string is shortened from both ends compared to saddle-only compensation, so the 12th fretted note and harmonic still ring at equal pitch. The bridge has to be placed closer to the 12th fret than usual. I use the "typical steel string" compensation numbers from Trevor's book. Not sure if he'd be ok with me posting them here for free... that's the most valuable page of the book for me.

I always measured from the 12th fret anyway, due to that half kerf discrepancy at the nut end. For example if using 25" scale, I will place the 12.5" mark of the ruler on the 12th fret. Then I can see where the center of the zero fret would be, and where the theoretical scale end would be.

Nut compensation does make it more difficult to measure the scale length on an unknown instrument. You have to measure the 1st fret to 13th fret and multiply by 12th root of 2. For example with 25" scale, the 1st fret is 1.403" and 13th fret is 13.202", so if you measure 1st to 13th you'll get 11.799". Then 11.799 x 1.0594631 = 12.5 (half the true scale length)

Since few have capitalized on the opportunity I say, low to the left. Levity, right?

Constantly.

Half kerf here.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

We put the nut at the end (the one with the headstock) of the fretboard.

lets make this a bit more understandable.

To add the compensation at the nut you need to know your set up first.

What is your goal to action height?
What scale length?
How did you brace the top?
what is the neck relief?
what is the bridge compensation angle of the saddle?

So on an earlier post I stated about truing the fret board on the guitar and this is one of the reasons why

all the questions I just posted is about known variables on the top. in my experience 3/32 is way too much on a properly set up
fretboard.

so what can you realistically expect?
If your fretboard is not perfect your intonation won't be perfect and the compensation wont help at best you can do is a
good enough.

so you have to understand the entire fretboard is what is going to determine the compensation factor .
to worse the fretboard is the more compensation you need on both ends, so spend some time on the details
for the best end result.

the one thing I do after truing the fretboard is I allow a few days to let the guitar become a guitar. you can't do compensation on this
till the top settles in.

so here is my method that works for me,

I do about a half kerf

the first thing you do is adjust the neck relief and saddle . One trick is to use a sacrificial saddle. string the guitar up and have the
load of the strings on the top. 2 weeks should be about enough to get the top to settle in. Make your first adjustment the neck relief
fretting 1 and 13 you want to be about .004 off the 6th fret.
adjust the nut slot . I do .007 off the top of the frets. I have a gauge with a .007 notch on a .009 feeler gauge. The notch is about 3/8 long. I can rest this on the frets 1 and 2 I want the notch to enter the fret and the back of the notch to hit the nut.

So relief set nut slot set not we adjust the saddle . I like to do a 2 1/2 2 set up. I also will adjust the saddle to the point of a buzz. then see where it is at the action height. once I do this to all strings I now look at intonation.

I just don't do the 12 th fret. I want to see 5th 9th and 12th.

so first check the 12th. make an adjustment then check the 9th.
then the 5th
rememebr it is better to be a cent or 2 flat than sharp.

learning when to hit the nut is the trickiest part of this. so here I do the adjustment on the nut at the 5th fret.
you may have to do this a few times till you get it but it is worth the effort.

saddle width is also a part I like .094 saddles

this all starts with the fretboard. I also compensate the length on the glue up on the bridge. I have a video on the process.

there is a lot going on so learning the physics is important
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDKlmVkHDAU&t=72s

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Thanks John. And all the others.
Seems quite common, and I remember Bob Taylor saying he does that also.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Some nut compensation is better than none, so the half kerf is a step in the right direction. Trevor Gore and Gerard Gilet cover nut compensation and intonation very extensively in their books. For classical guitars I shorten the distance between the nut and first fret by 1mm, and use Greg Byers method to compensate the nut and saddle.

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Dennis:
"The bridge has to be placed closer to the 12th fret than usual."

This was also my assumption.

Clay:
"The original scale length should be used to figure the compensation at the saddle"

This would indicate that the bridge and saddle location are not affected by the nut compensation.

Could someone flip the light on for me?

I don't worry about it. I glue the bridge on without a saddle slot, string it up, then determine where the saddle has to sit for intonation to be just right (using temporary mini-saddles for each string), mark the locations, then rout the slot. This way, I don't have to sweat bridge location too much during gluing; ballpark is OK. It requires having enough open space on the bridge to cut the slot where it needs to be, a little this way or that way.

Right. I slot my bridges after they are glued on. And I can get the saddle in the correct location, with temporary saddles. My question was on the theory of the measurement, from the 12th to the saddle, with a compensated nut.