The Chetboard

can anyone tell me the width of the nut on Jerrys Baldwin

thanks Bob

2"

Thanks Phil, I see on your utube presentations you play mostly nylon string guitars,do you play with 2inch nut or smaller,the reason I ask is Ive always played eletric guitars,tele's 6120' etc,now I want try a nylon string guitar and the 2inch nut seems so wide for me,any sugestions would be appreciated.

thanks Bob

Hi, Bob... thought I would jump in here. There are some really nice nylon string guitars available with 1.875" nut widths which are a good compromise IMO. Taylor, for example, has a nice line of them. -Tom W.

Hi Bob,

I'm not Phil, but a number of years ago I had the same concerns about going to the full 2" classical neck after playing the "standard" width necks for so long.

I found that the human mind has marvelous "adaptive" abilities, and if you just take it slowly at first, within just a short period of time you'll be playing the wider neck with hardly any problems.

There is one, small, difference however, and that is if you use a lot of chords with a "thumb-over" on the bass strings, (Merle Travis style), you may have to learn them in the more "traditional", or classical style. It really depends on the size of your hands.

Conversely, you'll find (or at least I did), that when switching back to the more "standard" width necks, (1-11/16" and narrower) things feel much more "crowded", and I found that the best way to overcome that, was to play both the wide, and the narrower/standard necks on a regular basis!

If you get discouraged with the wider classical necks, just take a look at Muriel Anderson's videos on YouTube, and you'll realize that if she can play those wide necks with those little bitty hands, you shouldn't have any problems!

Hope this helps...

David

Bob-

As Phil said, Baldwins have a 2" neck. The neck is also pretty thick front to back. Some call it "clubby", but it's very comfortable for me. Plus, the guitar has a scale just over 25".

Keep in mind that you'll (probably) be using the nylon and the Tele for different things, as did Jerry. There's a reason he played Struttin' on the Baldwin, and Pickie, Pickie, Pickie on the Tele.

Craig

Craig mentioned that the neck is clubby (thickness wise). When I first got my Baldwin I felt it was too clubby for me. I had my repair guy shave the neck down for me so it's just like I like it...wide and thin. That's the one thing I like about Kirk Sands necks, his are wide with a thin profile.

Thanks Guys for your response, And David you hit the nail on the head with the thumb over bass,Ive played that style over 50yrs so it hard for me to play the wide necks.It amazes me to see the little chinese girls with little hands or as you said Murial Anderson play, I tried a Taylor nylon today it was smaller than 2inche and it wasn't bad to play,the only thing I didnt care for was the neck set'easy to play on the first five frets after that strings were too high.

Thanks Again

The size of the hands is one issue, but another one is the flexibility of the hands! For some people with "large enough" hands it's difficult to compete with tiny but very flexible hands.