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I've tried everything I can think of. It's just dead sounding. I realize this is the "secret art". But can't someone tell me what to try?

First thing... new string.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Not sure what everything is, but the B string seems to be a testy little booger at times.....

Start with Fretting the B string, is it still dead? then work on the saddle, if fretting allows the string to sing then it is your nut slot. Maybe a dead/dud string? String ball seated?

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Gwaltney Guitars

Yes. B string is almost always a booger. Fretting it sounds better

My slot file is a little smaller than string. I tilt file a bit to make room.

Yeah, sounds like your nut slot, get a proper set of files, it will save a lot of headaches. Anyway, very, very little filing will usually fix it.....go just a little at a time, test until she sounds good.

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Gwaltney Guitars

Not good

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Gwaltney Guitars

This is a very good example of what I mean. We share so much. But not so much when it comes to setup. If and when I ever get the process down, I will share it all. Not give answeres like "not good".

FYI: if u go to Stew-Mac and read/watch Dan Erlewine's discussion on this, he reccomends just this.

Dan knows more than me that is for sure, follow his directions and you should be fine.

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Gwaltney Guitars

Argh. Does anybody know the answer?

If you said it sounds better fretted, there must be something wrong with the nut robbing energy.

Is your saddle making good solid contact all the way against the bottom of the bridge slot - another place where energy can get robbed or unintentional damping introduced.

In my limited experience these are the 2 areas where I've been able to improve dull boring sound.

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I'm sorry, but I am not sure what else to tell you====Based on deduction, it sounds like your nut slot on the B string is messed up. MY suggestion is to get a set of proper files and make another nut, or try to fix the B slot in the one you have with a proper B gauge file. If that doesn't work we can see what other possibilities present themselves. You can certainly try what Dan says to do, but that hasn't worked too well so far.

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Gwaltney Guitars

What Kevin said, if it's OK fretted, it's in the nut.
Correct size fret file is best (2-4 thou bigger than the string, definitely not smaller - manipulating it may be OK if you've got the knack and it's the same size as the string, but it's not so easy to get a good nut slot if you have limited experience), bottom angled down north of the nut face, good fit on the bottom of the nut to the neck.
Deep breaths and a walk round the block, decent supply of bone, proper tool for the job, you will get there.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Yeah likely a nut slot that is too tight and binding. When you tune the B string does it smoothly react or does it jump up in pitch possibly with an audible "tink" sound?

Other possibilities are the the slot break angle is too shallow which can produce a sitar sound and/or a slightly muted note. Too little break angle in the slot or a hump in the middle of the slot can do it too. Slot angle should be about half the head stock set-back angle.

If when you fret the note and it's clear that does implicate the nut slot. Something else to check is how the string is attached to the post. If the winds are on top of the shaft hole the break angle is being compromised. If the winds are below the post hole, what you want, and you have at least 4 winds, more is better for a B string and your head stock set-back angle is good enough it should be fine.

On occasion strings can wear a crevasse in saddles too and then can be pinched in the saddle and this can produce a muted notes as well. Solution file the grooves out of the saddle and provide a string bearing surface that is wide enough to be less fragile.

As others have suggested it could be a bad string although that is less likely for a string that is not wound.

Not exactly your problem, but decades ago Augustine Black label classicals ran a batch of b-strings that where just awful. They must have been so far variable in diameter that they could not make harmonics and they were not in tune at most locations on the fret board. I would buy extra strings and keep trying until I got one that worked. Maybe used six b-strings to find one tolerable one. They ran a whole warehouse full of these, so it was years of bad strings. I am not sure today if the Black label are any good.

Thanks all. Good advice. I will check it all. Whenever I do a setup, it's almost always the b string that gives me fits. Maybe my file is too small?

Earlier in the thread I think you mentioned your file being to small for the string and that you needed to rock it back and forth. I'll echo the suggestion to try a slightly larger file.

I know you're under time constraints to get these guitars done. That's never fun Good luck.

The best resources on setup I've come across are from Trevor's "Build" book and the long thread on fretwork we had. I have Kent Everett's setup DVD, but the numbers suggested there turned out to be considerably higher than what Trevor and the guys in the fretwork thread suggest. I remember Simon Fay also sharing some great things about fretwork. I'm not sure if they were in that thread of somewhere else.

I use a file that is a few thou larger than the B string - I've never had a problem with the B compared to the other strings (except for intonation) so it might be your file.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

You can always make a slot wider with a smaller file. Simply scrape the slot sides on the down stroke and Bob's your uncle.

When I am cutting slots I have my tuner out and retune a few times too. Why? Because as I am tuning back up after the string goes flat from deepening the slot if the slot is binding tuning up will often cause the read-out to jump as the string binds and then lets loose. You often can hear an audible "tink" too. Because I am retuning I can tell at once if my slot needs to be a bit wider.

It's also a good idea if setting up for say 12's to cut the slots for 13's as well because someone may want heavier strings.

One more thing. When I get new files and that happens once in a while because we use them every day step one is to mic the new file and see what the width really is. If you look at my files on my bench some of them have the cutting width marked on them with Sharpie because you can't always trust the manufacture to be as precise as we need to be at times.

I am presuming that you are using gauged nut files of some sort too.