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Hey guys,

Got a quicky for the classical crowd. I have a rough cut nut for the classical i'm building however when i put it in place the top (visually) only sits a bit higher than my undressed frets. I still need to clean up the frets a bit but i wanted to get some numbers from any one willing to provide them as it just seems like this is too low. What # do you shoot for, for the measurement from the top of your fret board to the top of the nut?


Thanks!

Nate

I'm not a classical guitar builder but the procedure is about the same for steel-string and classical so here goes. The rough nut only needs to be a tad more than the string diameter above the fret height. Here's how I do it:

Fit the nut after you've leveled, crowned, and polished the frets. Your string slots are going to stop just a hair -- a few thousandths -- above the fret height IF neck geometry is right. Use a half pencil or some other way to mark the fret height on the nut. I just lay the half pencil on the first few frets and pencil the line on the nut. Now, walk over to your belt sander with the nut and start sanding. Stop when you are above the line by about a string diameter plus a wee bit for final sanding/polishing. (For steel-strings, stop at 1/2 string diameter for bass and full string diameter for the unwound trebles.) Replace nut, file the slots, remove nut, sand and polish to final height and shape, add a dab of white glue and you're done.

On many classical guitars, the strings sit in pretty shallow slots on the nut. Some have less than half the string below the edge of the nut. I like having about half the string buried, but it's not necessary. That means that you need the height of the fret plus the thickness of the string. The difference between the height of the string and burying it half way in the slot, should give you the clearance you need over the first fret.

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Waddy

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