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i have a number of factory made guitars that have been giving me very expensive, yet ultimately ineffective disappointments for years. in the past ive responded by buying yet another guitar only to slowly realize that the newest guitar was suffering from a varying degree of the same problem.

Two weeks ago, I finally gave up asking my repair people for opinions and bought a Saddlematic tool and confirmed my suspicions once and for all. Two guitars are important patients now: A Guild gad F40p (25.5" scale) and a Recording King RNJ26na (a 25.375" scale Nick Lucas 00).

The Guild has its slot 1/32nd off on the treble and 1/16th off on the bass (both guitars have poorly measured offsets). The Recording King has its slot cut a full 1\16th off on treble and 3/32nds off on the bass side. It also has a very narrow bridge without much space between the new, planned slot cut and the bridge pins.

My plan on the Guild is to buy the Stew Mac slot cutting jig and use it to enlarge/re-cut the back end of the slot and see how sharp a ramp angle the bass strings will present. It wont be ideal, from what I can see, but I think that this Guild will be at least serviceable.

The Recording King though, I'm less sanguine about. I've watched a bunch of videos about replacing the bridge and filling the holes left in the top and bridgeplate and redrilling them, but I'd like to avoid that. Sometime ago, I saw a website that showed a bridge modification that cut the bridge pin plane and the pin set so that they fit the existing holes but ramped at a back facing angle, to allow some room for extra clearance between the pins, the string exit and the saddle.

Before i try this, i thought I'd ask what you all thought of this plan. I realise that it's not an ideal solution but I'd like to avoid buying $500 worth of tooling and just buy the $175 slotting jig, using ingenuity to make up for being too currently poor to do it completely correctly.

I'm anxious to read your thoughts. Thanks.

" I realise that it's not an ideal solution but I'd like to avoid buying $500 worth of tooling and just buy the $175 slotting jig, using ingenuity to make up for being too currently poor to do it completely correctly."

Using ingenuity you can make a perfectly good slotting jig for almost nothing out of scrap lumber. A pro shop might need something less fiddly, but if you are only slotting a couple of bridges, spending a few extra minutes setting up a home made jig might keep more money in your pocket.

How did a saddlematic determine the saddle slot is off location? In and around NYC there are plenty of pro guitar shops that know what they are talking about and have repair persons that are equipped do set up, correct intonation and perform modifications that may be necessary.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

You say they are disappointing, and you measured them as off, but you don't say anything about intonation. Have you checked it? If the intonation is correct, moving the slot will make things worse.

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Mike Lindstrom

More information is necessary for useful advice.
what is the string height @ the 12th?
How much neck relief measured between the 1st and 12th?
Is the bridge slotted for the strings? Fluted pins?
A photo of the saddle height/string angle behind the bridge would help with the plan.
Leaning the slot backward at an angle can help with a slot marginally close to the pin holes.
In terms of the cost, to say nothing of the risk, a competent luthier could be your least expensive option.
Why did you, "give up talking to your repair people"?
A different repair person might be the new tool you need.
re- slotting a bridge well is one of the more dicey jobs.

The Saddlematic tool does add a compensation factor when setting a saddle location but it is not "the" standard. If the guitars can be intonated so that the 12th fret and an open note can match, moving the saddle will not help. Most guitars are a compromise of distributed intonation errors. Even "properly" intonated guitars drive some who have a really good sense of pitch batty because of the inherent intonation compromises. Read through a current thread on this site http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=49137.

I am mentioning this because you are seeing it with multiple factory made guitars and have not been able to convince the repair people you go to. I suspect that if you move the saddle and go through the effort to do a 12th fret intonation on the saddle you will have guitars with the same problem.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Clay S wrote:
"Using ingenuity you can make a perfectly good slotting jig for almost nothing out of scrap lumber. A pro shop might need something less fiddly, but if you are only slotting a couple of bridges, spending a few extra minutes setting up a home made jig might keep more money in your pocket"

Thanks for pointing that out. In my own defense, I'm not a very experienced tool maker and given the accuracy I'm most probably capable of in the now, I believe a pre made jig is probably worth it.

I've used four repair people in the past three years and I've spent over $3k trying to get four guitars up to snuff, unsuccessfully. All of these people are very well regarded and capable, one was even written up in a big, glossy acoustic guitar magazine but none have given me a well intonated guitar back. I've realised that the only way I'm going to be able to get to where I need the guitars to perform is to learn how to do the work myself.

It'll be less expensive as well.

The intonation is where the problems began. Both of these guitars play sharp. Interestingly, the Guild, which is less off the mark via measurement, is more off during use.

Have you tried to intonate the saddle and if so what were the results? While you may have intonation problems why are you so sure you found the cause of the problem or identified the optimal solution? You have not presented any information as yet to say that you have identified the problem.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Than why would you pay them anything? Let alone three grand?



Ditto

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

If you are determined to try and re-slot the bridges you can find a very nice plan for an on-board slotting fixture in Don Teeter's repair manual volume 2. Like Teeter I do like the idea of a 3/16" saddle on a problematic instrument. I'd be interested in Hesh's or Dave Collins' take on a newbie tackling an in place bridge re-saddle as a first repair project.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I can answer these questions in more detail later, when I have the guitars in front of me, but for now, I can answer a few of the questions.

Both bridges have minor slotting ramps for each, the RK has very shallow ramps, almost as little as the strings might make themselves over time.
Both have lower saddles, each would benefit from a neck reset, the Guild more so than the RK.

I gave up on my repair people after an particularly poor experience I had with a guitar I'm fond of , which never fully satisfied me because of intonation problems. This particular guitar, a 000 Recording King, had a full set of service done to it to fix the problem. A neck reset, a new nut and saddle, a fingerboard extension ramp, a new bridge, a full regret and more, totalling $1700 and the guitar is currently unplayable. Worse than it was at the beginning.

I suppose I actually gave up for good after having recently spent $175 on the Guild, having it set up and the frets planed and dressed (a new nut was made as well) and experiencing intonation problems that can't be done via the current saddle location.

If you know someone in NYC I ought to see before I do this, I'd much appreciate their contact info. I'm not able to spend another $1700 on a new turkey Chase though. I'd rather just buy used Santa Cruz and the slotting jig, ending up with a possible two playable guitars...

I will post the information requested soon. Thank you for your time and patience!

As for paying them, I try to work 7 days a week and the repair shops are a minimum of 1.5 hours away. I don't know if it's blind trust or what but every time I pick up a repaired guitar, I'm excited to have it back and fixed and I somehow don't get that the problems are still there until I have it back for a while. By then, I have little time to get it back. Weeks turn to months and I resign the troubles, buy another guitar in the hope of finding a playable back up and there we are.

One thing to keep in mind is there is no such thing as a perfectly intonated guitar. Yes, you can get them right at the open position and the twelfth, but the intonation goes away as you move up the neck. The problem is the strings are closer to the frets at the 1st fret than they are at the last fret. That means you need to progressively push the string harder (farther) as you move up the neck. Many people have worked on this problem and some have found ways to get very close to perfect. One example is an intonated nut and saddle, there are others

For most people, a well intonated guitar is good enough

I suspect your problem is not the repair people you have seen. It is your ear. It is just to good.

Good luck with your endeavors.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

But then on the other hand, factory guitars have never been know for their ability to be intonated. I would locate the shop of a custom builder, or go to a trade show, and try a few. The answer might be there.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

I have a few high end guitars, a Santa Cruz TR pro, a Bourgeois built Baden and two high line Larrivee's, and though they're not perfectly intonated, they're much more consistent than my less expensive guitars. That and the Saddlematic agrees that their saddles are properly placed.

be aware that you can fix it till its broke

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I'm not sure how you are using the saddlematic to check the saddle location. On a 25.5 scale I use the following as shown in the Ste-Mac scale calculator:

Place the end of the saddlematic against the face of the nut And centered over the 12th. Flip it around to the saddle end is 25.5"
Move the adjustable pin out on the treble side so it measures from the nut 25.589" (+-0.0300
Move the adjustable pin out on the bass side to 25.715" (+-0.0300)

The pins point to the peak (break angle) of the saddle.

This is assuming the 0 fret end of the fingerboard has not been compensated during construction, and the nut is not compensated.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Just throwing it out there... have you considered your playing technique might be a contributing factor? If you play light as a feather up the neck does it intonate correctly? If you play with a death grip on the neck an otherwise great guitar will play quite sharp on fretted strings and sound really off, especially if it has big frets.

Sometimes I'll play 8 hours in a work day. Most days I play 6. I wouldn't be able to do that 7 days a week with remarkably poor technique.

The instructions that came with the saddlematic gave measurements for the pins to fall on the front edge of the saddle slot. That keeps the tool close to level, which might affect its accuracy were it raised to the top of the saddle. I did change the pin position slightly , via the fret calculator on steamed, for the slightly shorter scale RK.

You're on a slippery slope. Many years ago, I had a guitar that wouldn't play in tune on the high frets and clearly needed the saddle to be moved back. It was going to be touch and go as to whether the new saddle slot would fall into the bridge pin holes or not. So before I started cutting wood, I wrote a small program to work out where the new saddle slot should be, to get the thing in tune at the 12th fret and the open string. (As it happens, the shift required was about 3mm and I had just enough room). I then asked my self the question "If it plays in tune on the open string and the 12th fret, how in tune is it everywhere else"? That lead to the idea of nut compensation (which I'd never heard of at the time). To figure out whether the concept would really work, I built a guitar to prove it (or not). It worked, and the rest, as they say, is history.

One more thing, the best you can do is to get your guitars to play equal temperament accurately. Don't go looking for Just...

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Why not? I've played quite badly for pretty much my whole life.

But seriously, I'm not saying your technique is bad, just that technique can make a difference. Sometimes a big difference.