Tip - Nut slot height....another approach

Got a new way of doing something? Or maybe an old method that needs some clarification.

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woodrat
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Tip - Nut slot height....another approach

Post by woodrat » Wed Jan 22, 2014 11:44 am

I received my new StewMac cattledog a couple of days ago and there was a nice new fangled tool on the cover called SAFE SLOTTM Nut Guard that you can buy now....

...well I thought that I would post a tip on how I get the height as low as possible buzz free using just a doubled slip of paper. Modern copy paper is conveniently sized at 0.1mm. So I cut myself a slip of it and double it over to guide me down to the height I want which is about one thickness of paper ~0.1mm. When you are cutting down you use the slip doubled and you can tell when you get below 0.2 mm but still greater than 0.1mm by the tension and friction of the underside of the string on the paper. Once you are there you use the paper no longer doubled. If you have a set of calipers you can also go hunting for scraps of paper that are slightly thicker and thinner to guide you down from sub 0.2mm to your final height of ~0.1mm. The feedback from the paper is a really good thing and when papers of several thicknesses are employed is very fast and accurate....

I hope someone finds this tip helpful....

John

NB...in the picture I am using a dummy nut that I use when I make compensated nut guitars...the 3mm set forward is taken away on the dummy and then the intonation is done in the normal saddle only method and measured and halved and that figure is applied to each end...ie I make the real nut and then apply 1/2 the compensation to that and 1/2 to the saddle...from "the book" of course...:)
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