Official Luthiers Forum!

So this is rather amazing and cool that you posted this Brad. ChatGPT is correct that most factory guitars do come in very high, don't know if these numbers are off but they seem very much like what I see from some major producers. You can also see that these numbers are substantially higher than the "training wheel" numbers I suggested as safe but you can go lower if you want at your own risk and in your own time.

Wow the description is pretty good although not accurate on the idea that player comfort and note tone and sustain are at odds. You can have all three low, well cut nut slots have no bearing on sustain and tone in my experience unless you go too low.

ChatGPT may be a victim here of the ole causation vs. coincidence pit fall in science where we note a deficiency but are incorrect in our assertion as to why. "Tone and sustain" may be reduced because cutting the nut slots low is also often reducing action which reduces volume especially on an acoustic instrument that does not have "11" on the amp knob. If we have not noticed lowering the nut slots does lower the action.

Tone and sustain are also subjective so I'm chucking here because ChatGPT is truly mimicking we humans flaws and all falling for the subjective too.

In the spirit of sharing, if you place a light at an acute angle to the side of the plane of a string (and fretboard), the travel of the string is amplified in its shadow. The more acute the angle, the more the movement of the shadow is amplified. I use the movement of the string's shadow in lieu of the "sliver of light" method to cut the slots to final depth. It's amazing how much the string travel is amplified with an acute angle creating the shadow. This is, for me, more visible (accurate is not the proper word but the proper spirit) and both faster and easier to differentiate than the sliver of light (I have 2 types of cataracts and generally crappy vision). This shadow method, coupled with Hesh's tutorial, has taken some of the stress out of cutting the nut slots to final depth.

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Hey Karl this is a great idea and thanks for sharing it too!

With the sliver of light method our task light on our bench placement is critical and we have to keep moving our heads to different angles and it's still not easy to see (or measure accurately). This makes me wonder if your method is not only great for cutting the slots but if we could calibrate the shadow at a specific distance for a measurement it may be one of the most accurate ways to measure the gap distance available to we mere mortals who don't want to pop $50K for a laser measuring device.

I'm going to let Dave Collins know what you came up this is very clever.

Great idea Karl thanks for posting this!

I have the same issue with the task light. Karl, I'll have to try your method.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"