Nut spacing tolerances

[thefishinmusician]

Allright, here is my dilema....I've rebuilt, re-radiused, and refretted..( with stainless steel ) 4 guitars for a customer...Floyd Roses, locking nuts...String hight at the 12th fret on the high E a little over 1/64th..no buzz...Hight at the low E 1/32nd...( he's finally realized you can't go lower with a 42 for a low E string...)..He's super happy with everything except the spacing at the nut..He wants both E strings to be in 5/32nds in from the sides of the nut..This makes my compensated spacing ruler useless..So I've done the spacing with a caliper..First nuts on them were O.K. except he decided he wanted the 5/32nds from the edges..O.K., no problem, I'll cut new ones gratis..The spacing on 2 of them was a tad off , so I said I'll redo them..I got the spacing between the strings equal within about 5 thousands either way..Still not happy...How can one get anymore accurate than that?..I've been in this buisness for 2 decades and can't remember the last time someone complained about spacing..Is he being unreasonable? I have given him a great package deal on all 4, and allways bend over backwards to keep a customer happy...I've spent as much time doing the nuts on all 4 of these as I spend refretting one regular guitar.P.S. new nuts were not part of the initial deal, but I threw them in for 20 bucks each..Anyone got ideas on how to get them perfect?

[Bob Webster]

Oooops, Christian, you just violated one of the unarticulated taboos on this forum.

Never, never ask "Am I totally dumb here or what?". Tends to double the length of the thread.

Bob

[Gary Fried]

I don't understand the nut spacing issue either if the guitar is equipped with a locking nut. He is definitely a customer that will never be satisfied. I've had a few customers like this but one in particular always made me laugh. I did a re-fret on a mustang for a customer and he did not feel that there should be any string noise no matter how hard he played. He would call me repeatedly to complain and I finally gave him a partial refund and told him to never visit my shop again. A few months later I received a call from a luthier in Philadelphia asking about the customer and my experience with him because he was having the same problem. My shop is in Brooklyn, NY.

[Christian Johnson]

HA!

[thefishinmusician]

Behind the regular nut locker...not a floyd nut..

[Tom Krebs]

Reminds of 'the customer' that walks in bad mouthing another shop's work that you know is reputable? Saying "no thanks" to some work seems like a golden rule in the service business.

[William F.Eden]

I realy hate to be rude to a customer but if this guy ever came into my shop I would tell him to get his ass back out the door he came in....Bill

[John Holloman]

Might be better to give back 20 bucks, put the old nuts back on and move on to a new project.

[thefishinmusician]

Creak, crack,..I'm doing my back...But I'm known to make the pickiest jerk happy....I hope he has a lot of friends...P.S....He loves all the other work i"ve done..Impossible low action, fret finish work, etc...I guess I will not let him beat me...I'm a nidget..

[Markus Schmid]

Well, so rise your reputation, raise your price. Explain him that for further precision you have to charge per additional hour, tell him .005 tolerance is what's included in the regular price.

High precision and a good reputation or famous brands have their prices, everything for free is not worth anything (at least, people perceive it more or less so). I know, this is s sad truth, but it's reality. Think of this when you next time decide (or don't decide) to buy a swiss nut file...

Making him pay a high price for his unique nut will make your customer even happier (no joke: he will know that he got a perfect job for his hard earned money, and he will understand that you worked hard as well for earning your money.

Good luck!

Greetings from Switzerland,
Markus

[thefishinmusician]

You make excellent sense...Wish you would have chimed in sooner, as I commited myself allready...Greetings from Minnesota!!

[Markus Schmid]

You committed yourself for what? Making a zero dot zero tolerance nut with even spaces between the string outlines??? I don't think so... or I could not believe it...

[thefishinmusician]

After critically measuring every thing, the spacing between the b and g sting was off by 10 thousands.. and on the other the same strings was off by 12....Says he can feel it...Oh well