Has Anyone Widened The String Spacing of ThNut Here?

[Wellington]

I actually prefer a narrower nut like Guild, at least I think I do, bits more about the overall feel of the neck. Anyway, with some songs I play I get open strings buzzing against me finger nail or finger sometimes. I've looked at the nut, there looks to be a decent amount of room below the treble E string. I've thought about having a new nut cut at a sixteenth wider or close to, it might help a bit with these small issues. Has anyone done this on these 1 11/16 nuts?

 

[adorshki]

I actually prefer a narrower nut like Guild, at least I think I do, bits more about the overall feel of the neck. Anyway, with some songs I play I get open strings buzzing against me finger nail or finger sometimes. I've looked at the nut, there looks to be a decent amount of room below the treble E string. I've thought about having a new nut cut at a sixteenth wider or close to, it might help a bit with these small issues. Has anyone done this on these 1 11/16 nuts?

Not that I recall, but there is precedence in widening string spacing on a 1-5/8 nut to get a little more comfort room, so can't see why the concept wouldn't apply here.

Issues mentioned are the angle of the fret bevel at 'board edges and fretboard radius, re the potential for the strings to slide off the edge of the board.
Sounds like you've got room, though.

A decent tech/luthier should be able to assess it and know to take the fret ends into consideration as well.

 

[jedzep]

Al covered all the bases here for your conversion.

I'm really pleased with the dumb luck I had when I swapped out for a Martin nut (1st pic) on my '63 F30, having only to sand the overall height a bit. That 1-3/8 spacing was marginally uncomfortable, so now with almost 1-1/2" spacing I'm enjoying capo-less playing again.

 

[Christopher Cozad]

Wellington, when considering widening your string spacing, the only thing I can think of that you may wish to be aware of when replacing nuts or re-cutting nut slots is the end of the frets are almost always either beveled or rounded away from the edge of the fretboard. Translation: Don't use the edge of the fretboard as a guide for repositioning the 1st string- know where the fret edge bevel or rounding begins/ends. If you position the 1st string a wee bit too close to where that bevel or rounding occurs, it is painfully easy to unintentionally pull the string off the edge.

 

[Nuuska]

Here comes a stupid question from old guy who has been playing wide variety of guitars since 1964 or -5 :

Are you sure your fretting hand finger nails are cut short enough? It could well be that even if the nails are short in "normal context" - they just might need to be a bit shorter for fretting - fretting as guitar playing that is

 

[davismanLV]

My input on this comes from debate on this forum of actual nut width vs. spec'd nut width on older Guilds. My two 1994 dreads both measure at 1.75. Which is great for me but I'm sure the nuts were cut for 1 11/16ths spec. Not a whole lot of difference but every bit counts. So that's what I was used to. Then I buy a Taylor, which has a 1.75 width but the nut is cut for that width so the strings are closer to the edge. When I first started playing it I'd always end up almost pushing the two outer strings off the edge of the fretboard. With practice and a little adjustment it was fine, but switching back and forth required me to modify my playing a bit. And as Christopher says, you need a bit of room before the fret edge bevel so you're not pushing the string off the edge. But you can change them, and you might like it wider. You'll just have to adjust your playing style a bit. Keep the old nut if you do, so if it's too much, you can switch back. That's all I have for you. I hope I explained this well enough to understand.

 

[HeyMikey]

I had the nut widened and spacing increased on my F47 braz, which made a huge improvement in playability. However, I was positive the neck and frets could afford the increase. Have a luthier double check if you can.