Posted on January 10, 2010February 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Questions: Zero Fret Advantage Questions: Zero Fret Advantage by Steve Klein Originally published in American Lutherie #61, 2000 Greg Pacetti of Fairbanks, Alaska asks: Can you tell what the advantage is in having a zero fret at the top like on the Klein and Selmer guitars instead of a regular nut? Steve Klein of Sonoma, California responds: I feel the zero fret is the only way to have an open string and fretted string sound the same. I’ve found two other things I like about this arrangement: 1. By using a slightly higher fretwire for my zero fret, I can easily set the string height over the first fret for all the strings at once by filing the top of the zero fret down; 2. This also affects intonation by moving the string termination point forward. There are other articles that explain in more detail the reasons one might want to do that.
