After doing a fair amount research here on the forums and on Google on the topic of mandolin string spacing, I thought I'd post a request for feedback here to get the opinions of folks far more experienced than me on the subject.
I'm relatively new to the mandolin (started lessons in 2008) and own a beginner level Kentucky KM-172 oval hole. From the beginning I've had the problem of my fingertips brushing adjacent strings when holding a note. I hoped that with time I would get better at positioning/etc such that the problem would go away, but it hasn't. I don't have fat fingers, but the problem exists just the same, and at this point I've had it with perpetually playing muffled notes because of fingers touching adjacent strings.
From older threads, I've found that many folks have an outside-to-outside string spacing of about 1", or 25.4mm. I measured my mandolin, and here are the figures:
Nut width: 1 1/16" (or just under 28mm)
String spacing (outside-to-outside): 29/32" (or ~ 23mm)
(pics below)
It seems this narrower spacing might be part of the reason I'm perpetually brushing adjacent strings. I don't have the funds to purchase a higher end mandolin at the moment, so am stuck with the one I have. I'd like to get a new nut put in there to spread those strings out a bit, but first wanted to get feedback from the forum as to the current spacing and any suggestions for what to set it to. I figure with that 28mm nut width that I might not be able to get to the full 25.4mm (or 1") string spacing; but is there also the possibility of narrowing the spread between pairs of strings? Would that help? Just as a note, I primarily play classical style (don't know if spacing should be different compared to bluegrass, but just thought I'd mention it).
Again my goal is to get rid of this problem of muffling other strings, so any advice/suggestions/feedback would be greatly appreciated.
-Erik
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