making a bone acoustic saddle

[martinedwards]

OK, I've done a few of these now, and EVERYONE with an acoustic should have a bone nut & saddle, right?

all righty, first carve (or sand) the top of the saddle to the curve you want, about 1mm taller than you want (just copy the plastic one you're replacing.)

I've just noticed that the string spacing in these pics is a hair off, its fine once things are straightened up and all is sorted.

string it up with the gauge of string you'll be using.....

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e328/gowanedwards/40600723.jpg

using an old string, make a temp saddle and adjust it til the harmonic is the same note as the fretted 12 th fet note.

your ears may be good, but a good digital tuner is better!! get a free download like AP tuner 3.06

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e328/gowanedwards/40600724.jpg

mark on the soundhole side of the wire, repeat for each string.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e328/gowanedwards/40600725.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e328/gowanedwards/40600726.jpg

shade everything on the soundhole side

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e328/gowanedwards/40600728.jpg

file away all the pencil marked bone. then file in from the back to make each individual string support a dome rather than a flat on top

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e328/gowanedwards/40600729.jpg

string it up again and you're done.......

although you may want to lower the action a hair by sanding the BOTTOM of the saddle

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e328/gowanedwards/40600730.jpg

[mishmannah]

Great tutorial. These things are REALLY hard to do when you have to flipping photograph everything too!!

What wood is the bridge? It's very interesting looking stuff. Is it that ancient rosewood you salvaged from a neighbour's table?

[CypressGroove]

Wow, what an incredibly smart and more importantly to me, simple way of doing it! I reckon I might just be able to manage that...

I take it things aren't so easy with split saddles? Given you have to think about the position of the routed channels beforehand?

I really love split saddles, but I'm definately going to have to start off with a single saddle on build #1 siomply because of the abundance of great material like this thread to show even a dunce like me how it's done ;)

Thanks Martin!

[martinedwards]

the theory is simple.

Each string should be the scale length plus the diameter of the CORE.

on unwound strings the core is all there is, but on wound strings it's the steel bit up the middle.

making up the numbers it's roughly

.011
.016
.011
.016
.020
.028

which explains the b string wiggle.......

[stratman50th]

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