general mandolin discussion

[brose]

Greetings. This is my first post after lurking and reading daily for about 6 months now. I don't know a lot about mandolins, other than I'm obsessed with them, but I have some questions about the width of the nut. The nut on a mandolin that I recently purchased is 1 and 3/16" wide. The nut on my Gibson F-9 is 1". So anyway, I have some issues with the wider nut-- the string pairs are farther apart than on my F-9, and are a bit harder to play. Is there any way to put a nut on this mandolin and have the slots filed closer together so that the pairs of strings(the two E strings, the 2 A strings etc.) are not so far apart. I'm not so sure that I'm explaining this right. How I discovered this is I teach 3rd grade and have 2 other mandolins in the classroom so my kids can play them at recess, and one of my kids is a great little guitarist and has recently bought one of those cheap Rogues, and he noticed that on the mandolin that I recently purchased--he said it's harder for him to play because the gap between the 2 E strings and A strings is bigger than the other mandolins we play on. So anyway, if anyone out there could help me out on this subject, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks..... brose

[Strange1]

On my MM I have a similiar prob. The pairs of strings should be 4/10ths of a mm apart but my D and A are 5/10ths of a mm and the A and E are 3/10ths of a mm apart the 3 is too close to play and requires me to make a new nut. just get a new nut and notch to suit you, I guess.

Jack

[brose]

Thanks Jack,
# I was hoping that someone would say to do that, because I think that would fix several issues I have with this mandolin. # brose

"I went to Staton Island, Sharon, to buy myself a mandolin..." Joni Mitchell