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My first attempt at intonation, I am noticing this on the g string,I have it looking spot on , open, at the fifth fret, and at the twelfth fret, ( using a basic , hand held korg tuner) however when I finger a D chord in the first position, the A note (on the g string) is a bit sharp,before I continue with what seems to me like a solution, I was wondering if anyone with more experience has had this issue also,is it a common thing , or an anomaly? and if there is a standard solution? . Thanks jody

Is the Ab sharp on that string too? Sounds to me like the nut might be a touch high.

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Evan McCartney

What Evan said is the most likely thing, but there are lots of reasons why it might be out. I'm a little suspicious about the 5th fret 'harmonic' being in tune: it should be a little sharp. Do you know what the 'main top' resonant frequency is?

These are all fretted ( except for the open ) notes , I believe the main top is near c# , the nut may be a tad high, I dont think so , but I will check it in the morning . thanks Jody

well using the frank ford method of setting the nut slots, when I depress the g string on the bridge side of the second fret, the string is actualy touching the first fret as well., so it is about as low as it can be, any lower would probably cause more sharping. Jody..

Is the nut position compensated at all ???? I find a lot of guitars with no nut comp will be very tough to tune in the first position .. you try to sweeten up a D an G chord, but then a C sounds aweful ... and the G string is usually the culprit. Comping the nut forward helps this situation some ... some use 15-20 thou, I use 40 (1mm).

Its a bit of work to do this on an already completed guitar, because you need to remove wood from the fingerboard end to do this (widen the nut slot towards the first fret). The nice thing about this as well is, if you find it makes the guitar worse - although I bet it wont - you can always shim the nut back or scoop the front edge to make the string slots break farther away from the first fret, bringing you back to the starting point.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Thanks Tony , I believe I did remove about .030 from the end of the fret board, maybe this is not enough ? or maybe it warrants a double checking of the situation just to be sure. Jody

i have 1.385 from the nut side of the first fret to the nut itself, which should be about right using this discusion viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=22593
unless I should be measuring to the center of the fret wire. Jody

I think that was it, I was measuring from the edge of the fret, not the center! thanks Jody