Everywhere I go I find a pal

Peter Weinschenk, Editor, The Record-Review

Well, it’s enough to make a cat laugh.

The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday confirmed President Donald Trump’s name will appear in the memo line of millions of stimulus checks, reversing a precedent where politicians have been unable to politicize IRS checks sent to citizens.

In this case, however, the signature could not be more ridiculous.

The president will attempt to take credit for payments that not only is he not paying for, but given that the entire stimulus will be borrowed, that nobody is paying for. That is, except of course, future generations.

This is like your weird Uncle Don taking your family out for pizza and handing the bill to your six-year-old.

Thanks Uncle Don!

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I am spoiled, I admit it.

This past summer at jazz camp in Door County, I got an opportunity to play my guitar teacher’s priceless archtop made by the premier luthier Jimmy D’Aquisto.

The action of the guitar was ultra-low, the neck was super fast. The guitar was so easy to finger that it practically played itself.

I cannot get the memory of that exquisite experience out of my head as I approach slotting and installing the nut on the archtop guitar I have been making from scratch.

I am telling myself that herein lies redemption. My guitar may be riddled with cosmetic flaws, but the guitar could be one for the ages if I can reproduce the D’Aquisto action on my jazz box.

So, I am digging in. I have read volumes and listened to numerous videos about installing the nut. To achieve a precision result, I have made two specialty jigs that will help the process. One will hold different thickness feeler gauges over the fretboard so I will know exactly how deep to cut into the nut to have low action but avoid fret buzzing. A couple thousandths of an inch makes all the difference here. I also made a gauge with a dial indicator to precisely measure string action. I have used this device to measure action on my other guitars to get acquainted with this neighborhood.

All of this is crazy complicated. Slotting the nut depends on how flat the neck is, how thick the strings will be and the angle on the strings as they run to the bridge.

I wish there was a simple set of instructions about how to proceed, but nothing like that exists. My book penned by luthier great Bob Bennedetto says that the strings on the first fret should be 10 thousandths of an inch above the first fret. I, however, measured the action on my current archtop guitar. The strings sit at five thousandths of an inch on the first fret.

Do I follow the book or the real world? It’s a classic question. I will forge bravely ahead.