Spacing between courses

[entau]

OK - I searched for this before I posted - didn't find what I was looking for - so I apologize in advance if this has been beaten to death allready

is there a formula for spacing between courses ( and I guess between strings) relevent to neck width ?

I bought a bare peice of ( finished) bone for a saddle type bridge -and though the instrument tunes up nice - the left hand feels like it is kind of crowded -
I did the grooves for the bridge based loosly on the origonal ebony bridge - but I musth ave gotten the spacing between courses too close.

this is a 5 course cittern - the neck width is 4.4cm at the first fret and it widens to 5.5cm at the 12th and then widens slightly where the fret board ends over the sound hole.

the origonal carved ebony bridge is about 1cm between course- I am shy that between 3&4 mm depending - the trick is keeping the low course and the high course on the fret board- there is plenty of surface on the bone bridge- it is wider than the widest part of the neck.
Does it make sense to have the strings fan out over the bridge? much wider than the nut ?

any suggestions would help.

[entau]

correction the left hadn is fine - it is the right hand that seems to stumble from course to course.

[Paul Hostetter]

Sometimes you want to position the two outermost strings such that they lie as close to the edge of the fingerboard as possible without the possibility of them being pulled over the edge in the heat of the moment when you're playing. But it's not really necessary to do that. You need enough separation between courses that you can hit individual courses accurately and without accidentally hitting the adjacent ones. You can actually place the courses so far from one another that you have to work a bit too hard to get your pick from one to another. So it's a bunch of trade-offs that you can only arrive at by experimentation. What works for one player won't work for another. There are no hard and fast rules.

Spacing between the two strings in each pair is also somewhat subject to individual tastes, but it's less of an issue for overall playability. In many instances the distance is the same at the nut as it is at the bridge - they only need to be far enough apart to not hit each other as they are ringing. Heavier string pairs need a bit more distance than unwound ones. 3-3.5mm is a safe range.

If you've just made one that's too close, you already have good information for the next stab. Make your saddle a bit too tall and check the spacing there. If it's not right, lower the top and do them over.

I'm not into pushing products much, but Stew-Mac sells a tool for laying out proportional string spacing that's pretty cool. You can read about it here (http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/I-0673.html) and here too (http://www.stewmac.com/tradesecrets/ts0028b_spacingrule.hzml?jrl=327165&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ts0028b&clk=111260). In the case of an instrument like yours, you'd first lay out the 1st and 5th pairs with the spacing you want, then use the tool they sell to lay out the ones in between. It works on nuts and saddles.

http://www.stewmac.com/catalog/images_1lg/0673_1lg.jpg

That's one crude nut, by the way. You can surely do better! But the spacing is good. On a double-course instrument like yours, I use a really fine set of dividers more often, and adjust the separation of the course pairs by eye.

[entau]

Thanks - I think I will have to buy a few blank bone bridges and go from there
as I'm pretty confidant I won't get it right the first time
of course I could always re-train my right hand for a smaller interval between courses -
but you know - old dogs and new tricks


an art to it to be sure

[thistle3585]

FWIW, I was told that the outside string spacing, at the bridge, should be the same width as the width of the board at the 12th fret. Thats how I have set up my instruments. So, I guess one has to be figured first before determining the other. I measured the board off a similar instrument to get the fingerboard dimensions.

[Paul Hostetter]

If you have a personal rule that works for you, fine. And that seems like a very reasonable one, though it doesn't address some players' issues. For example, I have replaced bridges on several guitars for people who wanted the strings closer together than they originally were. Their point: easier brush strum and less distance for the pick to travel when crosspicking. It's a lot of work (new bridge, rebuild bridgeplate and top, etc.), and the end result looks really odd because the strings are so close together over the board, but they asked for it! These are Clarence White-type git-tar pickers.

[Graham McDonald]

Here is a pic of a Gilchrist A5 nut which is a good starting point

[Fretbear]

It is interesting to look at that Gil nut and other conventionally spaced ones. If you set up a nut using that Stewmac rule, and let it guide both the spacing between the pairs and the courses, starting from what you want as an overall string spread, you will get a much less abrupt difference between the spacings. I personally like it like that for same fret noting, etc. The Stewmac rule is one of those tools that pretty much pays for itself with one or two usages, and takes into consideration the miniscule expanding of the string courses and both their spacings as you move across the wound strings.

[entau]

the gil A is nice for a mandolin -

neck is less than 3cm and the spacing between courses is about 5mm ?

the cittern neck is over 4cm at the the nut
and is 5 courses - so not sure even doing a proportional conversion would apply ?

[Graham McDonald]

Didn't pay enough attention to your first post

here is my usual cittern nut and saddle spacing

[entau]

Thanks Graham and Paul and everyone who posted - much appreciated -

[arbarnhart]

I hate to resurrect an old thread, but I also hate to start a new one when there is so much good info here...

I am doing a classical guitar to nylon strung mandocello conversion. My string diameters are 1.2mm for the Cs, 1mm for the Gs, 0.75mm for the Ds and 1.02mm for the As. The A is larger as it is monofilament. After reading this thread and seeing Graham's measurements, my thinking is to divide the nut width exactly by 4 and then center each pair within its quadrant with 3.5mm between centers except for the Ds, which I could do at 3mm. Does this sound reasonable?

Thanks!
Andy

[billhay4]

This topic (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=7;t=31492)contains a spreadsheet that allow you to calculate string spacing with various variables. See Jerry Byers' post.
Bill

[arbarnhart]

Exactly what I needed - thanks!

[Rick Jones]

Here's one more unpaid endorsement for the StewMac String Spacing Rule. I wasn't really convinced I needed one of them, until the very first time I used it - that made me a believer.

[david blair]

Good idea to set the outside edges first, dividing the remaining space. I like the E strings slightly further apart, for split string playing.