MSA string spacing?

[Terry Sneed]

String spacing closer on MSA than other steels? I've had a couple MSAs sure don't remember the spacing on the others being as close as the one I just bought.

[Jim Palenscar]

To the best of my knowledge they are all the same-

[Terry Sneed]

Thanks Jim. I just measured the MSA against my sho bud proffesional. There's almost a 16th inch difference, the sho bud being wider.

[Jim Palenscar]

The great majority of guitars for quite awhile now have used 11/32(.343") at the changer end.

[Terry Sneed]

Thanks Jim, I emailed you about buying a bell crank. Thanks

[Ian Rae]

11/32" seems to have been the average for a long time.

I just measured mine (all 12-string):-

Excel 0.336
Williams 0.329, which is on the narrow side.
My home-built one was 0.354 which was nice and wide.
That's 9mm, which kept machining to a minimum!

That's the pitch of the strings, measuring centre of top to centre of bottom and dividing by 11, not the spacing between them.

[John Drury]

My first guitar was an older Deckely S-10 that had narrower than normal string spacing, it bothered me bad enough to get rid of it!

I was a student at the time, my teacher, George Edwards, said that it would be a problem. He was right, my second guitar was a Sho~Bud LDG, a vast improvement as far as string spacing!

I have seen older MSA's with that problem.

[Sam Inglis]

Just measured my MSA and the spacing is 0.333 on the E9 neck at the changer. That's on an early 70s Classic D10.

[Terry Sneed]

Thanks guys, mine is an 82 model. All I have is a tape measure to check with. But the strings are a little closer, I can tell the difference when playing the bud then the MSA. Not sure if I can get use to that.