DIY String Spacing

[Pete Andreev]

Hi everyone,

I'm shaping and slotting my first nut. I'm a little surprised at the lack of string spacing resources out there. I love StewMac and I've spent a few hundred bucks there already but at $21, their "string spacing rule" seems ridiculously overpriced, especially for such simple info.

How do you guys tackle the string spacing thing when slotting a nut?

[Hesh Breakstone]

You know what works best for each and everyone of us is very much a function of our level of participation with Lutherie too.

Pete says that it's his first nut and understandably for the first nut one could purchase a bunch of nut slot files, string spacing rule, some tools for truing up the channel that the nut goes into, individual files for working bone, a motor and buffs for buffing your nuts... etc.  But it's his first nut.

For those of us who do this for our livings and do a lot of it good tools are essential and usually well worth the price.  For the first time nut maker with no telling if there will be a second sure some of this stuff is expensive but the expense is not by any means an indication of gouging, over priced tools, etc.

Instead what may make sense for Pete and what does make sense for me are very likely two very different things.

I'll add that if you bill by the hour, and we don't.... favoring to bill by job with standard pricing accordingly not having the tools that permit you to do great work and do it in a reasonable amout of time is not all that fair to clients now is it...  Clients in my view should be able to have an expectation that we know what we are doing, know how to get there, and will not charge them for our learning curves OR a personal aversion to purchasing tools that may provide better results, faster, more reliably.

It's a cost of doing business for those of us in the business and likely expensive to some degree for those who dabble.