Nut width on x-150's

Hi, newby here. I bought an x-170 on Ebay a year ago and the guitar arrived, perfect condition blonde and truly gorgeous to look at. However, I found the 1 5/8" nut too small for my big hands. So unfortunately the guitar sits there unplayed. (May seem a sin, but I like just looking at it . . .) I had pretty much written off Guilds because of this narrow nut (thinking this was the case with all Guilds), but I recently came across one of the x-150's advertising the 1 11/16' nut. Don the moderator wrote to me saying he thought all the Westerly x-150's had the bigger nut. Can anybody weigh in on this and on how they feel about Guilds and the narrow nut "issue"? Many thanks . . .

Welcome aboard grundig!

The narrow nut issue is a personal preference thing. I have the 1 5/8" nut on 3 Guild electrics (nothing newer than '71) & I love 'em! My acoustics however are wider & longer scale, but it suits me for what I play acoustically.

If just shows how unsophisticated a player I am, but I never thought about nut spacing. I'll have to see what the spacing is on my gear.

Default said:

It just shows how unsophisticated a player I am, but I never thought about nut spacing. I'll have to see what the spacing is on my gear.

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Me too!

grundig,

I have a Westerley X-150, X-170 and a Corona built X-500. The 150 and the 500 have the
1-11/16" versus the smaller 1-5/8" 170 (I like looking at my orangelicious 170 too). Like you, I do feel the difference! I tend to play my X-500 more (it's so sweet), but I try to alternate with the 150 and the 170. I have to play the 170 for a while to get acustomed to the narrower nut. For me, it's a matter of transitioning from one guitar to the other in all aspects of their peculiarities.

I suppose, though, that I propbably prefer the larger nut. However, I don't have large hands - mine are small.
I could understand why a person with large hands would have a problem with small nuts :lol:

Alex

My Corona X150 is 1 11/16", as I believe are the Westerlys. Archtop.com shows 2 in the sold section, one Westerly and one Corona; both are 1 11/16", as I think they all are. I usually prefer slightly narrower necks, but the Savoy's medium-slender neck profile and shorter Gibson scale length makes it feel just right to me.

Hi Grundig,

The story of my X-170 is identical. It is also blond, dead mint, highly flamed and with the rare 5-piece neck. I too have large hands with fat sausage fingers and I just can't cope well with the narrow nut width, so it sits in its case while I play mostly play the bluesbird. For me, the narrow nut feel is exacerbated by the round c neck section. I considered selling it but it is so beautiful that I guess it will stay under the bed until I pop off then the kids can do what they want with it. It is some comfort to see that X-170 prices seem to have gone up since I bought it so at least it wasn't a bad investment. I haven't yet measured the nut width on my Starfire 4 but that is a dream to play by comparison.

Cheers

Steve