Well, I have this kinda strange problem with my Agile lp copy, being that all of the strings are properly intonated except for that the G string is sharp, but only between the 5th fret and the nut. I have no idea what's up with it. I have the saddle as far back as it goes, and it's not really sharp or flat at the 12th fret, but above the 5th fret its pretty sharp. It is the most apparent when I'm doing barre chords. An A major sounds perfect, a G major sounds ok, and an F major chord just makes me grimace every time. What is up with this? I have a theory that the nut is too high in the G string slot and maybe filing it down a little will help?
Well, I did some more research and I found out two things. First, i friggen misspelled intonation in the thread topic, and I guess according to the Fender Player's Club
If the intonation starts out bad on the first few frets and gets progressively better going up to the 12th, your guitar may have a misplaced nut. This would throw the entire scale off. You need the assistance of a competent repair person to relocate the nut. That's not what I wanted to hear. How much do you think this would cost to get done, and how long would it take to get done. Also, since it's just a 150 dollar agile, would I be able to do this myself without too many problems?
Fixed the spelling. :D
A nut slot not cut quite deep enough is my first thought.
First, though, are these new strings? After you've played on strings a while, they get corrosion, dirt and stuff on them and won't intonate right, because their mass is unevenly distributed.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
the strings are kind of old, but I know this is a problem that's persisted for some time. It doesn't go away when I change strings either. I'd put my money on the nut slot not being cut deep enough, seeing as how there really isn't a nut slot per se. I'll get a pic up later.
No slots for the strings in the nut? :shock:
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Oh wow, I totally misread that. i thought that meant the nut itself was set too high, as in there is/should be a notch for it in the neck of the guitar....because mine doesn't... Either way, I don't think the nut itself is sitting entirely flat on the neck, on one side it looks just fine, but on the other side theres a small mm sized gap on the other side. I figure that I could possibly take the nut off, file the flat bottom side of it, because it turns out that all the strings are about equally off in intonation after closer inspection (according to my tuner all my strings are about 10 cents sharp on average), and I think the G string is just the most obvious sounding. Is there any kind of formula for filing down the nut to get a specific amount of change, like for every millimeter that the nut/ not slot is lowered the note becomes x cents flatter at the xth fret? I'm guessing i'd have to wing it....can someone with a properly intonated Les Paul style guitar get out their ruler and figure out how high the bottom of the nut slots are for their strings in relation to the top of the fretboard? lol. I just want to try to fix this myself because this is a 100 dollar guitar I bought as a second guitar to give my american strat a rest cuz it's starting to show some wear and tear from being my only electric. I figure this guitar can my "beater", and be the one I use to learn how to do these kind of things on my own. If i screw up the filing than I'll just get a new nut from stew-mac.com
Do a bit of browsing around at: http://frets.com/ You'll find all sorts of good information on nuts and intonation there.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
I went to Agile and it said the width of the neck at the nut is 1 5/8". You can find these on E-Bay.
It may be that there is some glue under that nut causing it to be uneven.
Here is a good article about replacing nuts you might enjoy.
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
Great sites, thanks guys! I have some wood glue so I'll try to do this when I have time. Maybe tomorrow, but It'll be weird for me to be securing something as important as a guitar nut in place with just elmers wood glue like the site says. I'll have to fight the instinct to irreversibly bond things together with Gorilla Glue.
Yeah, you do want it to be removable. The strings hold the nut down and there's not a lot of shear stress on it.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Yea, I would have definitely cemented that sucker in place till the end of time had I not come to this board and gotten those links. Thank god Al Gore invented the internet, and thank god guitarnoise.com was put on it!
