blindboygrunt Posted March 29, 2014 Share Posted March 29, 2014 Ordered myself a new bone nut from fleabay during the week. Being at work at the time with no guitar I googled J45 nut size , to find that it is 1 11/16 in crazy imperial speak , converted it to metric = 43mm. Ordered a 43 mm nut . too small :-/ My nut is 45mm . that's measured to edge of the fretboard . correct? Why would it be different from the spec pages ? £5 down the toilet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted March 29, 2014 Share Posted March 29, 2014 Well, at times in the past the J-45 nut width has been 43 mm ( 1 11/16"), which also happens to be the standard Martin acoustic and Gibson electric nut width. I measure nut width from fingerboard edge to edge, like you say. Remember that you can always make a longer nut shorter, but you can't make a shorter one longer. You gotta be multi-lingual here: know both metric-speak and imperial-speak. Convert the imperial fraction to a decimal inch (11/16= 0.6875"), add the whole unit to get decimal inches (1.6875"), and multiply by 25.4 (number of mm to the inch), and you end up with 42.86 mm. Or, you could get a small scale that has metric units on one edge, and imperial on the other provided you know that most imperial scales are given as 15 (or 32!) units to the inch. Or, you could try to convince the US to go metric, but good luck with that! By the way, don't blame us. The UK came up with the imperial system. We just brought it here with us. At least we aren't measuring in furlongs. Oops, I guess we still do that in horse racing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParlourMan Posted March 29, 2014 Share Posted March 29, 2014 Your guitar should be 1.725 BBG. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted March 29, 2014 Share Posted March 29, 2014 The nut width on a number of my guitars seems to be a smidgeon more or less than what the specs say. Rather than buy a "ready-made" one, the best policy is to buy a blank and shape it yourself or have somebody else do it as part of a set up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blindboygrunt Posted March 29, 2014 Author Share Posted March 29, 2014 Your guitar should be 1.725 BBG. Trust you to confuse things further. Don't be decimalising imperial measurements ! Why , though , do the specs say 1 11/16 ? That's not a smidgen out . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted March 29, 2014 Share Posted March 29, 2014 Trust you to confuse things further. Don't be decimalising imperial measurements ! Why , though , do the specs say 1 11/16 ? That's not a smidgen out . The specs on the Gibson website list 1.725" as fairly typical for today's Gibson acoustics, including the standard J-45. That doesn't round well to anything imperial, but it is closest to 1 23/32", which was fairly common in the late 1940's (at least based on guitars from that period that I have owned). The 1 11/16" nut on the J-45 seems to have come in sometime around 1948 or so, and continued until the mid-1960's, when it got narrower. Don't know when it started to get wider again. It would interesting to measure nut width on J-45's from, say, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 to figure out when 1.725" (43.8mm)became the norm. I'm guessing around the time Gibson started using CNC neck carving machines. According to the Gibson website, all the electrics I checked show a nut width of 1.687", which ia 1 11/16", or just under 43mm. In fact, it's exactly 1 mm narrower than 1.725". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blindboygrunt Posted March 29, 2014 Author Share Posted March 29, 2014 Cheers nick. But mines 45mm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted March 29, 2014 Share Posted March 29, 2014 Cheers nick. But mines 45mm It's a Gibson, after all. I give up on taking specs off the Gibson webpage. 45mm is the same nut width as the Luthier's Choice neck on my Fuller's SJ. It's just over 1 3/4". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
father_of_pearl Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 It would interesting to measure nut width on J-45's from, say, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 to figure out when 1.725" (43.8mm)became the norm. I'm guessing around the time Gibson started using CNC neck carving machines. My 2006 J45 Historic is 1 11/16th, a hair less than 43mm, go figure... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blindboygrunt Posted March 30, 2014 Author Share Posted March 30, 2014 My 2006 J45 Historic is 1 11/16th, a hair less than 43mm, go figure... There's a nut lying here would do yours if ya wanna call round Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountainpicker Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 I always purchase the blanks oversize and then adhere to the old carpenter's dictum, "Measure twice, cut once." It takes a little longer to work down to the final fit but the results are satisfying. What struck me about the OP is five pounds as a price. Whew! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meanstreak Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 Or, you could try to convince the US to go metric, but good luck with that! I was in 2nd grade learning about the metric system and remember my teacher telling us "the metric system is coming, probably 5 years at the most." That was 1984. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParlourMan Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 I think we're all looking at this from the wrong perspective. BBG's is clearly bigger than he suspected so my advice is that he should take this as a confidence booster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrorod Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 Yeah, and I think you ALL....are freakin' NUTS... ....or at the bare minimum....a little 'nutty'....Jes Sayin'... ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrorod Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 Ordered myself a new bone nut from fleabay during the week. Being at work at the time with no guitar I googled J45 nut size , to find that it is 1 11/16 in crazy imperial speak , converted it to metric = 43mm. Ordered a 43 mm nut . too small :-/ My nut is 45mm . that's measured to edge of the fretboard . correct? Why would it be different from the spec pages ? £5 down the toilet Hey BBG, if ye eat anything of 'substance'.....its 5 pounds or euros down the toilet every-day.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EuroAussie Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 I think we're all looking at this from the wrong perspective. BBG's is clearly bigger than he suspected so my advice is that he should take this as a confidence booster. It was just a matter of time, wasnt it boys ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrorod Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 Thats right, 'homey'! Just a matter of time, eh boys? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParlourMan Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 It was just a matter of time, wasnt it boys ... I'm disappointed it had to be me, to be fair I gave it ages for someone to gazump me, but I caved in. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blindboygrunt Posted March 30, 2014 Author Share Posted March 30, 2014 I always purchase the blanks oversize and then adhere to the old carpenter's dictum, "Measure twice, cut once." It takes a little longer to work down to the final fit but the results are satisfying. What struck me about the OP is five pounds as a price. Whew! Yeah , 5 pounds shaped and cut and ... Er....grooved ? Slotted !! Slotted . I thought that was alright price. Until I discovered I had a freaky nut. I've no interest in spending an hour carving and shaping a blank but MP. Life's too short to peel tomatoes . trouble is , it would've been easier to peel tomatoes. At least if you Google tomatoes you'll get a size. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrorod Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 I'm disappointed it had to be me, to be fair I gave it ages for someone to gazump me, but I caved in. ;) Awe....Buck up...little camper.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParlourMan Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 Awe....Buck up...little camper.... I'm sure I'll be ok... ps. what ye wearing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
father_of_pearl Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 There's a nut lying here would do yours if ya wanna call round Thanks BBG but I've already made the "upgrade" to bone nut. Had it done by a luthier, he knows better. Btw do you have a bone saddle on yer 45? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hogeye Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 Just so you know.... Gibson does a lot of hand work on the guitars so no two are alike. They can vary quite a bit just from the final hand sanding. There can also be spec differences caused by the finishing process. Remember they are hand buffed and the spec can be changed a bit just from the buffing process alone. Lots of things to consider here. The fret nuts are cut by hand from blanks for each individual guitar. If you want to replace one just take the old one off and use it for a template. Buy a bone blank and it will be large enough to work down to the size of your particular guitar. Never trust the specs on the web page. They have a disconnect between the factory and the folks that do the website. They can, and do print all sorts of strange specs and never seem to correct them. Pity.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blindboygrunt Posted March 31, 2014 Author Share Posted March 31, 2014 Cheers hogeye. I would've always assumed mine was 43 because that's what I read most. Ridiculous that I look it up rather than getting a ruler , but , like I said , I was in work at the time . I have been window shopping because my other guitar has a wider neck and its annoying me , plus I have gas. I have been checking guitars that have a 43 mm but width so it's the same as mine. Good grief. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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