Acoustic Guitar Construction

I asked ken if he was still into offering semi-hollowbody kits. According to Ken there is no real market for it, so no profit.
I've so little time that making one from scratch is no option. So I bought a Ibanez AS73 for 200. I'll tweak it with some Gibson burstbuckers and play it till I find more time for a build.

This guitar is well built and great for its money.



I can not see any flaws, so I'm happy. Exept for one thing:
The nut is not compensated and the notes on the first frets (for the E and A string) are 5 to10 cents sharp. (Intonation higher on the neck is perfect). Especially the low G note is out of tune. As I use it a lot, (Hey, I'm a G C D player) so I'll change it.

The fastest way is compensate the nut, by shorten the fingerboard a little.
My idea is to make a staight/perpendicular "jig" to clamp over the fingerboard and take half a milimeter off with my dremel.

Has anyone a smarter idea?
Thanks, Herman

The dremel seems like it would work, with the fret board radius you would need to be very careful to have the jig in a parallel plane to the neck face. I think I might just go at it with a razor saw supported with a straight edge followed by a chisel to remove the waste.

"Earvana" compensated nut?

Whaaah, I hate that, when others have better ideas. Well Ken, hat off to you. I could have thought of that option, 'cause I know this earvana things are out there. Thanks for the input. I'll get me one of those.
John, thanks for jumping in. But as I said, sooooo little time.......
Herman

I use Earvana on electrics that are having a hard time getting the "G" string to intonation properly. For me they have really done the trick. Once you use it a couple time and understand the principle better you can make your own individually if necessary.

At first I decided to get me one one the earvana nuts.
But after googling I could not get one below 50 dollar (w/ shipping). Too much for me
That is why I went for shortening the fingerboard.

I used a radius sandingblock and clamp it to the neck. The area towards the nut I leveld with tape.
Positioning the block precicely after measuring a few times. Then with the Dremel, I took 0,7 mm/0.027" off.



Looks like this: Due to the radius routing to the bottom is difficult. So a tiny ledge was standing. Stabbed it off with a chisel.
Looks real good now. Tomorrow we'll see what the effect is on intonation.

Could not wait. Peterson tuner attached. First capo on the second fret. Then intonate bridge to the 16th fret. All within 1 cent.
Then checking the nut. I made no carves in the nut on each string, but instead the nut is still straight.
Retune without capo and check the intonation of the first, second and third fret.
Well, The problamatic G on the low E string is not that sharp anymore. It is now 2-3 cent sharp.
I'll live with that. But it sounds far more in tune. An open G chord is so sweet now.
The rest of the string are either spot on, 2 cents sharp or low. In real life to me that is all in good (read: hearable) pitch.

"Hearman"