Hey you builders how high is a reasonable string height at the nut for an unfretted CBG??????
I may have set it a bit high, the four I have made lowest at 5mm, thru to about 8mm
Cheers Alex
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Thanks for the feedback, they are gifts for my guitar playing brothers so I can't ask their advice.
Cheers Alex
Low is better, I try to make mine so it will hold a pick under the strings next to the nut. Then adjust the bridge till it plays without buzzing when fretted.
My fretless' string height is just below 2mm at nut. It's not too low for a heavy slide and low enough for only minimal compensation for playing without the slide ("fretting the notes").
OTOH - I use "two business card height" at nut on my upright bass... But it's hard to play slide on a "contrabasse" ;-)
It's a matter of personal choice, but personally even for fretless I find that sort of height is way too high and makes for a rather awkward, clumsy playability. I take the height at the nut down to 2mm or less, which is plenty high for slide playing, and allows fingering too without having to wrestle the strings down to the fretboard.
It's a bit of a fallacy that you need high action for slide - the only real case is for lap steel where you want plenty of height over the fretboard for stuff like behind the bar bends.
A bit of extra height is fine for slide playing so you aren't grounding-out the slide on the fretboard, but this can be easily achieved by raising the bridge a bit. The better a slide player you become and the more you develop your touch, the lower action you'll be able to cope with.