Intonation & Saddles

[Will Reyer]

Intonation & Saddles 10/28/20

I had sent this privately previously but John correctly pointed out that posting keeps the forum alive.

I admit to being envious of people like John Joyce, who glued in his piezo pickups (3) prior to attaching the back of his guitar. Either that or extreme accuracy in their placements isn't that important. I'm not always sure just exactly where the pin holes on the bridge are going to be located, until I drill them and then figure out where the bridge ought to be placed.

And I admit to being extremely reluctant to construct a guitar with a narrow, slanted saddle, as I'm not sure I could locate it accurately enough to make it play properly – which would have wasted all that time in building. Most of you guys are just an order of magnitude better craftsmen than me to be able to do that and make your guitars talk properly.

I've got a cheap aluminum yardstick, and I've scratched in a mark where the start of my saddle ought to locate. This actual distance mark on the yardstick being the scale plus compensation minus half of the quarter inch saddle width, to locate the leading edge of the saddle from the nut.

I've discovered that stringing up my guitars to concert pitch decreases this length by slightly over 1/32". So for #8 I made the leading edge of the saddle 1/32" past this mark and strung up it is right on the mark when at concert pitch.

I'm attaching a photo of the bridge/saddle for this guitar just completed, #8. Saddle is .250" wide Corian, perpendicular to the guitar/neck centerline, not slanted like everybody else does. This is a great illustration of why Lowden uses two separate saddles.

I came by the idea of quarter-inch wide saddles because an early find in my guitar knowledge quest was the acquisition of Don Teeter's book, in which he recommends that width for proper intonation.

I do the intonation with my ancient Seiko tuner, a king-size cigarette package size thing I bought in North Austin as soon as I discovered there were such things. It's got a big long needle and good calibration. The intonation for my #8 build is not perfect but it's close, not only going by my (suspect) ability to discriminate even close to a cent of pitch, but the indication of the tuner needle. Low-tech, yes. I'm sure strobosocpic tuners and exotic software could get it improved beyond my ability to detect by ear.

But just zoom in on my photo, if you have that ability, and line a straight edge between the high and low E's and you'll discover that if I'd slanted a skinny saddle, the only two strings that would have been in tune are the E's, the sixth and first strings. Lowden uses a separate saddle for strings one and two.

It appears to me that for proper intonation that I need close to 1/4" of actual total width (distance from the nut), as the high E is right at the leading edge of the saddle and the low E isn't much more than 3/64" from the back edge.

So I got out my Santa Cruz OM with slanted, 3/32" wide saddle, turned on my tuner, set all six strings to pitch, played the octave. All the strings were wildly sharp at the octave except the 6th string, which was right on pitch. Then did same with my #8, not perfect but much closer to the pitch for each string at the octave.

One of my questions, then, would be what am I giving up in sound/volume/tone/whatever by using a much bigger, heavier saddle? Or, what else am I missing here? Is this really a thing, or not?

[peter havriluk]

Thanks for sharing. We all need as much discussion and information as we can scare up. Especially the intelligent and empirical kind, which this sure is.

And that's a gorgeous bridge!

[John Parchem]

I really admire your bridge. I love its machined look and I do not think you are giving up anything using the wide saddle. I use a 3 - 4 mm saddle but I have place it right to intonate the guitar properly on a steel string.

[Carl Dickinson]

Here's a tool I've been using lately for saddle compensation. It gives numbers for both individual strings or for a straight saddle configuration for many different instruments. https://www.liutaiomottola.com/formulae ... sation.htm. Just fill out a few fields and hit the "calculate" button.
I would also recommend a good 36" rule with fractions down to 64ths and 100ths of an inch. Check out the blems from taylortoolworksllc on eBay.

[Dave Bagwill]

Mike Doolin, when he was building, often used a 1/4" saddle, with the slot parallel to the bridge.

[John Parchem]

Mike Doolin, when he was building, often used a 1/4" saddle, with the slot parallel to the bridge.

1/4" is enough space to intonate a steel string. I do 4 mm so I still need a couple mm of extra intonation on the bass side.

Carl that is a handy tool. I have not used it before.