The Steel Guitar Forum

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.