Acoustic Guitar Construction

Ken, That must have been horrifying. Were you reading David Russell Young at the time or did you manage to do it on your own?

I agree that a locked in, single purpose fixture is best for bridge placement. If one uses multiple scale lengths, then multiple fixtures - well labelled - are in order.

I was angry with myself --But I was lucky, the bridge came off clean, one tiny sliver, I used tape for plalcement no pin holes, so new there was no patena the repair was like it never happen. And as it turns out long term, it was an oppurtunity for product design.

Actually I had contacted David's publishers about the dimension error told them what mess would result. I have a thank you note and latter they sent me a photo copy of the replacement page -- I have that somewhere too.

Cumpiano's origanal book has no mention of compensation -- just double the scale length is the formula.

I guess I have the first edition of the DRY book.

I have the 1993 version, the second edition, I believe, of Cumpiano's book. The .15 is on page 39. I wonder if he actually used that on an instrument. Or did he ever simply double the scale length. Cowboy cords should do OK, either way.

My David Russel Young is from 1975 about the time I bought it, latter distribution should have had an"ERRATA" slip in page/s with corrections.

I think the problem with the Cumpiano explaination is that he mixes the use of scale length and string length, of course string length is arbitrary depending where on the saddle you take the measurement.

Hey John, my copy of Young's book is correct on pg 132 "center of the slot is exactly 12 23/32" (32.6mm) which if you subtract the distance to the first fret, 12.72" (323.10mm) has you adding .12" (3.13mm) compensation which seems very much in the ball park. The confusion comes on page 134 where he talks about adding a small correction to compensate for the stiffness of the strings; this total is the actual string length. Then he states "for normal steel string guitars, the correlation is 7/32" (5.5mm)". This is .10" (2.4mm) greater than the compensation from page 132 and seems like way too much. I have a Peterson strobe tuner and with the 3mm saddle thickness I do have room to make adjustments but obviously if I were to go by these measurements I would be well out of the range allowed by adjusting the saddle. The recommended 3.3mm of compensation at the high E that is on my plans seems long as well. The Kikead book is more in the 2mm range on the high E and 5.5 on the 6th string though I think he is using a saddle angle greater than 3%. I really appreciate the information that you have given as well as the time you took in referencing the discrepancies in Young's book. I realize that perfection is not obtainable, I just want to be in the ball park. The information you have provided will certainly make "pulling the trigger" with confidence much easier. Thanks again, Tim

John, one more quick question. I just want to verify your use of .11", I am assuming that you are measuring to the center of the slot, between the 3rd and 4ht strings, correct? Thanks very much for your input, I have seen the .11 number come up several times so I think we are narrowing down the range of choices. Happy Thanksgiving to all and thanks again for your patience and help,. Tim

Yes Tim, I use the center of the slot, considered from side to side and front to back. Works for me. Recording engineers have commented that my guitars are easy to record, including a lone 12-string that has a fully compensated saddle for all 12 strings, so I guess it works. But I have always wondered - since it is all about getting things right relative to the 12th fret, what does that mean relative to all the other frets?