My OM-18V nut job

“¦is done.

Just to recap (and to save me the bother of including a hyperlink) I suspected the string slots in the nut of this guitar had been cut so that the bottom and top strings were uncomfortably near the edge of the fingerboard, especially at the first five frets, or so. I had convinced myself this was a lack of quality control at the factory since inspection revealed that the distance from the string to the edge of the fingerboard increased noticeably – without the need to measure it – the higher up the fingerboard one looked. The consequence of this (again to reiterate) is that pull-offs, without real care, will be strangled because the string is pulled off the fingerboard before the intended pull-off is executed.

It’s now fixed and I can play a number of pull-off infested songs with a lot less inhibition. Thanks to Ed at Jimmy Eqypt’s Guitar Repair Shop.

The nut on my newly arrived OM-28V has the same issue which causes me to ponder: either CF Martin & Co have a blind spot when it comes to cutting and QC of nut slots, or – and this would be darkly amusing – it’s a design “feature” to maximise the string spacing – something which all the rage among fingerstylists in some quarters. Anyway, it means another trip to Jimmy’s in Glasgow.