Compensated Nut Layout Tool

[jaydawg]

There have been some treads about laying out a nut so I though would draw up a simple tool that I use when laying out a new nut. Just print up this PDF, make sure the scaling is off, and glue it to a piece of cardboard.

All I do is cut my nut to fit the slot leaving it about a 1/8 proud of the fretboard. Then I slide the nut up or down the scale until the outside edges of the nut line up with the two outside lines on the scale and then mark the locations. The scale is compensated to give even spacings between the strings. I used the string diameters from a set of 10's but the scale should work fine with 9's or 11's as well.

Also keep in mind that there is a bass and treble side to the scale.

Let me know what you guys think, or if there are any problems with the drawing.

[Jack Wells]

Cool ..

[Nick JD]

Thanks!

[boneyguy]

Very nice. Thanks.

[BAW4742]

Nice ...... I have a bunch of scraps of paper with different layouts on them. Looks like they're all headed for the trash now.

[jaydawg]

Cool, I hoped there would be a few people who would find it helpful.

BAW4742, if you've got some compensated layouts already check them against the scale I made up and see if we're in the same ballpark.

I've also got the CAD file for this if anyone wants it.

[guitarzan13]

Awsome! Thanks!

[BAW4742]

Originally Posted by jaydawg

Cool, I hoped there would be a few people who would find it helpful.

BAW4742, if you've got some compensated layouts already check them against the scale I made up and see if we're in the same ballpark.

I've also got the CAD file for this if anyone wants it.

I made my drawing by slipping a piece of paper under the strings of a guitar that I'm comfortable with, butt it up against the nut and then tracing each side of the string as well as the ends of the nut.

I checked your template against one I had handy. It was taken from a Taylor 314. The high B and E on your drawing would be slightly farther from the treble edge of the fretboard than my drawing. Your center mark lines up closer to the upper edge of my layouts for those two strings. Others are dead on.

I'll certainly be using your template.

[jaydawg]

Originally Posted by BAW4742

I made my drawing by slipping a piece of paper under the strings of a guitar that I'm comfortable with, butt it up against the nut and then tracing each side of the string as well as the ends of the nut.

I checked your template against one I had handy. It was taken from a Taylor 314. The high B and E on your drawing would be slightly farther from the treble edge of the fretboard than my drawing. Your center mark lines up closer to the upper edge of my layouts for those two strings. Others are dead on.

I'll certainly be using your template.

Thanks for checking that out. Good to know the drawing came out OK.

[Jack Wells]

jaydawg ............. here's how it compares to the StewMac Guage. As you can see in this picture the rule is about one inch from the top of your guage. The small differences would be miniscule on a 1 5/8 in. nut.

......

[Nick JD]

Originally Posted by jwells393

jaydawg ............. here's how it compares to the StewMac Guage. As you can see in this picture the rule is about one inch from the top of your guage. The small differences would be miniscule on a 1 5/8 in. nut.

......

What happens if you turn your ruler around, Jack?

[Jack Wells]

Here's how the StewMac guage works Nick. After marking the location of your two E strings, you slide the guage sideways until you find two slots (at the same level) that line up with your E string marks. The four intermediate slots then mark the location of the A thru B strings.

If I turned the guage over the slots wouldn't line up the jaydawg's E string lines at that point on his guage. There would be a point lower on his guage where I could get slots to line up with his E string lines.

[Nick JD]

Originally Posted by jwells393

Here's how the StewMac guage works Nick. After marking the location of your two E strings, you slide the guage sideways until you find two slots (at the same level) that line up with your E string marks. The four intermediate slots then mark the location of the A thru B strings.

If I turned the guage over the slots wouldn't line up the jaydawg's E string lines at that point on his guage. There would be a point lower on his guage where I could get slots to line up with his E string lines.

Gotcha, cheers mate. Would I be on the right track in thinking that Jaydawg's spacer is made for a different string gauge, and it's this that explains the differences between his and Stew's?

The space between the b and e string centers is 91.55% of the space between the E and a strings on Jaydawg's.

The chaps at Fender Esenada need to get a nut space ruler! One nut I have measures the thinnest distance between two strings being the a and the d!

[Rob DiStefano]

Nice idea jaydawg - yer tool works fine in a pinch. But the Stew-Mac spacing ruler is the ***** and I'd be lost without it.

[jaydawg]

I don't have the stew mac ruler so I'm not sure but I bet its based off a consistent increase with each step over, like .005 or .010. I made mine based off the actual string gages in a set of D'Addario 10's.

Because the string size doesn't increase proportionally the nut spacing will not be a proportional. That means just adding .010 ever time you move to the next slot (like the stew mac ruler does) will not give you a perfect layout.

A good test would be to take a micrometer and check the spacing between string on a nut made with the stew mac ruler.

[Jack Wells]

I don't think we know what the StewMac guage is based on. As far as we know jaydawg's guage may be more accurate. Regardless, on a typical nut, the differences are quite small.

[jaydawg]

Jack, if you get a minute take your micrometer and check out your stewmac rule. You've got me curious now.

[Jack Wells]

Sorry jaydawg ............ I don't own a micrometer. I tried measuring with my dial caliper. Even using the widest marking on the rule, I couldn't tell enough difference between two adjacent marks to consider my measurements to be accurate.

Using widest marking on the rule, I get the following E-A: 0.483 in. B-E: 0.467 in. If I set the caliper for the E-A spacing and move it to the A-D spacing I see no difference.

[hourglass]

Originally Posted by jwells393

I don't think we know what the StewMac guage is based on. As far as we know jaydawg's guage may be more accurate. Regardless, on a typical nut, the differences are quite small.

It's based on a steadily increasing 0.10mm measurement. I'm pretty sure when it first appeared in the Stew-Mac catalog they gave credit to Kevin Ryan:

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luth...e/nutrule.html

ryan

[Jack Wells]

Well..............in the article you linked to above, Frank Ford makes his own guage and according to him ...........

My choice of a 0.10 mm increment was strictly arbitrary.