Guitar not in tune when playing open chords

This is confusingly maddening.

The guitar my newest '51 is and does stay in tune.

When I play barre chords it sounds fine up and down the neck.

When I play open chords the chords sound sharp.

Is that because my nut is too high?

*sharp intake of breath*
( Keep it clean. :? )

Awwwww :(
In essence am I bending the note due to pressing down too far? The strings are easily two medium thickness picks from the frets. Not so on my other guitars so that leads me to believe the nut is too high or thick.

Do I need to cut a deeper groove in each channel or could I get lucky and remove the nut completely and just sand the back side a couple microns?

Thanks for any replies. :D

It sounds like it to me - I've just re-setup a guitar I haven't had for a year or so, and one of the things I needed to do was lower the nut. It did exactly as described, was perfectly fine for barre chords from about fret 3 or 4, but went out of tune on open chords. It really is maddening isn't it? I swore quite a lot until I figured it out.

Mine's a rollernut, so it didn't have anything I could have filed - luckily it was already shimmed with a plastic of some description (looks like a tooth from a comb :shock:, never did figure it out), which filed quite nicely. I think I need to do just a smidge more on the treble side, but I was playing it safe at the time...

Nice job resisting the temptation, Mis. :wink:

Thanks for the reply. Now I wonder how hard that nut will be to remove?

And to reinstall it what do I want to do? Use some superglue or is there something better that will last but is maybe not so permanent?

Mine was just tacked in with a tiny spot of superglue at each end (the slot it sits in is quite tight, and the strings hold it in firmly), so I just did the same when I put it back. I can't vouch for superglue not being bad for the wood though :?

These guitars have wood? :shock:

a tiny spot of white glue is all you need. The strings keep it in place.

Bish-

All three of my '51 have came with high nuts and suffer the same problem. You do not need to remove the nut to lower it. You can just file off the top and re-cut the slots as required.

-=Greg

Thanks for all the great information.

Today I got me a set of nut files. (That can really hurt if you are not careful. :shock: )

I spent about a half hour grooving on the nut and got the action (in one word) AMAZING. I am going to have to do this to the other '51 now.

I couldn't believe the difference and now I can set the intonation accordingly and play this bad boy. It has as good of action as my MIA Deluxe. Wooohoooo.

Anyone need a nut job? :D