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Thank you for your advice and time. I have been helped greatly by avoiding an emotional response and taking advice at face value and very directly. I am though, using tuners that are equipped to read out cents. This seems a bit too obvious and I'm a touch concerned that I'm being painted just a touch too green, to put that in the mildest way I can think of.

I make most use of a Peterson strobe tuner, even though it makes my mind wander sometimes <s>.

Danny your response is hilarious at best. You quote Jeff who has delivered a couple of dry emotionless helpful posts, you answer that post by saying you are avoiding emotional responses and then deliver one of your own taking offense about "a too obvious statement". You were correct in your early posts by saying that you just need to do it yourself. I am sure that there is no other who may be as generally competent as you are.

Btw I think a guitar owner with their own peterson strobe tuner is a repair persons worst nightmare.

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John,

I take it then, that you're dissatisfied with my response to Jeff. I'm interested in reading what you think a more proper response might have been? I did just post last night that I'm 4-6 cents out on the low E just yesterday. How would I have known that witthout a cents reading tuner?

I think an appropriate response might have been: Thank You Jeff, On the low E tuned to the open string I am sharp or flat X fretted at the first fret and Y fretted at the 12 fret On the A string ...

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Not being dismissive of you at all
Your initial question in your first post was whether you should go with the SM slot cutter and move the slot, on the basis of saddlematic measurements

The response from a number of experienced people here has been that it would be premature to go that route without systematic measurement of pitches on the strings at various frets. You seem resistant to doing this. I did not understand what you meant by the low E being 4-6 cents out at the saddle.

I am very keen on Trevor Gore's process of nut and saddle compensation for my own builds, and find that accurate nut setup is vital. The last acoustic I had in for intonation problems, which had eluded previous repairers, turned out to be a buildup of 1/2mm of glue at the end of the fretboard. This is why I say diagnosis is essential.

Also, you said "I set the relief to a business card on the 7th."
A business card typically measures 15 thousands of an inch.
Many Luthiers prefer 4-5 thou which is the thickness of a sheet of copy paper.
Excess relief can give sharp intonation.

Just as another example of the need to diagnose before surgery, I have an Epiphone in my shop that sounds pretty sour. After some measuring, it turns out the frets are laid out accurately on a 24.74" scale (actually rounded to 628mm) with the exception of the nut to first fret distance. No glue patty, the ebony inexplicably measures .020" Long???. Typically it's short half the fret slot width. A little short works out ok as a little nut compensation. Long, not so much.
If your going to become skilled at diagnosing intonation problems, you'll need a way of measuring fingerboard and fret intervals accurately.
Once you know the scale used to space the frets,(the one you measure in front of you, not necessarily the one published by the manufacturer), use some calipers between the nut face and first fret and add 1/2 the width of the fret wire.
Again, this is just another of the possible problems that will elude a SaddleMatic.
You also could have a stacking up of several small problems that only combine to make an audible one.

I noticed the business card thing too. That is a lot of relief.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Not that we need any more accelerant here but...

Considering the precision it takes to build a guitar, there is a surprising amount of "eyeballing", adjusting just a schoche (sp?), and measurement comparisons to random objects like business cards. It can make a newbie crazy sometimes.

In Kent Everetts setup DVD I think he refers to the "right amount" of relief as something close to a "thick piece of paper or a thin business card". What does that mean exactly in thousandths? I just chalked it up to finding the "thinnest" business card in my desk drawer and use that. Now I'm surprised to hear that a business card is too much. What's the right amount?

Appreciate it! Now back to the regularly scheduled program. Sorry to the OP.


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I am not an expert but I want just enough to know it is not back bowed. just a "touch" or possibly a "tad"

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Lol. OK, John. I'll add "touch" to my list.


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Well that was a mess. I'm trying to create and upload a spreadsheet on an android tablet and man, that was quite a tortured 2 hours. I hope the thing is legible on the forum (I haven't yet figured out how to edit the page size so im posting it as best as I can do it from here).

Jeff, '4-6 cents at the saddle'means I'm at the back end of the saddle, can't file anymore and I'm 4-6 cents sharp at the 12th fret, against the harmonic. As opposed to being sharp on the first three frets, which I might nebulously refer to as " at the nut'.
Sorry for not being more clear.



That's the URL of the spreadsheet I made listing out a map of readings I made with my Snark tuner, rather than the Pederson, because of concerns some voiced with using a strobe.
The figures that read in half cents are when the meter wouldn't reliably settle o one position.

Interesting, those results are indicating problems beyond saddle placement to me, It's late here, I'll give a detailed reply in the morning.

Ok, Firstly I'll make some general comments
- Errors of 1 or 2 cents are generally not discernable by most people, it is difficult to maintain consistent fretting pressure when testing to get results better than this.
-Adjustments of nut position result in a uniform change in cents across all frets
-Adjustments in saddle position result in virtually no change at the first fret, gradually increasing as you move up the fretboard.

Now looking at your results table, Overall it does not look too bad, up to the 9th fret but then going seriously astray on the 12 and 14th on some strings.
For the situation up to the 9th fret, you could probably optimise it by application of some small amount of nut compensation, but the sudden jump in errors between 9th and 12th and in some cases between 12th and 14th is of concern. As an example of nut compensation, on the high E, if you moved the front of the nut forward by enough to give 1 cent flattening, you would be perfect at frets 1,2 and 12 and very close elsewhere.

Other than saddle position, which could be part of the problem, these would warrant investigation
-Relief, try with 5 thou rather than 15
-Having adjusted relief, what does the string height over fret crown measure at the 12th?
-What gauge strings are you using?
-Does your grip change due to interaction with the heel at 12-14?
-You mentioned having a fret dress, were the frets properly crowned after leveling or left flat?
-How much do you play up at the 12-14th fret and on which strings? ie what matters to you?