The Nut Job

[Triple-o]

 

The Nut is often over looked,  if you have been working on barre chords awhile and still having problems make sure the nut isn’t the problem. All it takes is for the E or B strings at the nut to be set wrong to cause you misery.

 

 

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HRktOyDTn10

Edited April 4, 2019 by Triple-o

[Oldjock]

Thanks for posting Triple-O, a very interesting video. Randy obviously likes a low nut action by making the setting at .018 across all the strings at the first fret. I checked the recommended settings at StewMac (See chart below) which shows a higher gap for low E and lower gap for high e. I would suppose that in order to try Randy's settings and didn't like it, all it would cost me is a new nut.

Henk

Suggested action settings
 

Steel-string acoustic guitar		Bass E		Treble E
Action at the 1st fret		.023"		.013"
Action at the 12th fret		.090"		.070"
Relief: .002" at the 8th fret
Nylon-string acoustic guitar		Bass E		Treble E
Action at the 1st fret		.030"		.024"
Action at the 12th fret		.156"		.125"
Relief: .002" at the 8th fret
Electric guitar		Bass E		Treble E
Action at the 1st fret		.024"		.010"
Action at the 12th fret		.078"		.063"
Relief: .001" at the 8th fret

[Greg Voros]

The action at the nut is relative to the fret height. A generic measurement will not cut it. Hold down each string at the 3rd fret and tap over the first fret. If you have any clearance or gap between the string and the fret, you are good, if you have no gap that would mean the slot is too low and you will likely buzz when the string is played open. There could be a big difference in fret height from guitar to guitar as there are dozens of varying height fret-wire available for luthiers to use; therefore, to make a claim to set it at a certain height as a blanket statement is just inaccurate - when measuring from the board to check nut height. I made mention of this this because some folks do in-fact do it this way.

 

As I read through the notes above I just realized that oldjock made mention of taking that measurement from the first fret. Got it!  That can be made to work. However, you can dial it in more precisely than that. I left my commentary in the first paragraph for the sake of making sense. Rock on!

 

I hope this was of help,

 

Greg Voros

 

Edited May 7, 2019 by Greg Voros