A network for historic guitars and vihuelas

Pinky rest height?

I've seen a number of romantic guitars with a pinky rest. Now, I have one a period guitar with a shadow where a rest used to be, but I have no idea of how tall it would have been in relation to the string height. Anybody know? -Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Fernando Kurka on July 22, 2016 at 1:51

I'm not aiming to play that guitar this way, but rather, replace the rest that has gone missing. The rests that sit flush to the soundboard seem to appear on guitars that have the fingerboard flush to the table. This guitar's fingerboard is about 2.5mm elevated from that. Early technique made use of the pinky as a support, but if the rest is flush to the fingerboard, and the strings are elevated to accommodate a raised fingerboard, this will not work. Thus I'm trying to find what the distance from the top of the rest to the height of the strings should be for this to work.
I'd like to take my cue from an authentic guitar, rather than just guess.