GardMan
Enlightened Member
Over the last two weekends, I have given all 7 of my dreads a "mid-winter tune-up" and re-string... a bit more in-depth this year, because it involved making making two new nuts (D-25 as practice for the D-50) and fitting four Bob Colosi bone saddles (to the D-25, D-46, D-50, and D-55).
Most LTGers are probably aware of Bob and his products, and a I know a few of you have installed his saddles in your Guilds (or other guitars). I thought I would give a review of Bob Colosi's pre-shaped compensated saddles, and my experiences fitting them into my Guild dread (I didn't take any "in-progress" pics, but posted a finished product pic in chapter 1)....
I decided to try Bob's saddles because my D-50 needed a new saddle; the old saddle was not compensated (not that big a deal) and the string bearing surface was also improperly shaped. I also wanted to raise the saddle on my D-25 a bit, to eliminate some buzz when I strummed. So I started with two saddles, which Bob sells for $20 ea plus $6 shipping (per shipment). I got the standard "Martin drop-in" saddles, which are serpentine compensated. These are purposefully made over-sized, so that they can be individually fit to a guitar (these could probably be fit to any Guild using a drop-in 3/32" saddle). They need to be sanded to the correct height, width, and thickness... One caveat I should mention... I think that the saddles are radiused for a 12" fretboard... Guild fretboards are probably NOT uniform in radius, and from what folks have said, likely closer to 14" radius. This could make the action of the center strings just a little high... not something I have noticed in playing my dreads with the new saddles... maybe if enough folks started ordering, Bob would start making saddles fitted/radiused more for Guilds?
I ordered and paid thru Paypal on Sunday and had the saddles the following Friday (even faster with my second order, placed on Monday and received Friday)... so Bob's service was exemplery. The saddles were nicely shaped of a creamy white bone, and polished to a nice lustre. Bob sends good illustrated instructions on fitting and sanding the saddles to size... FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS!
The first step was pulling out the old saddle, and using it to mark the new saddle for height and length. With all four saddles, I used a rule and pencil to mark a line making the new saddles ~1/32" taller than the old... you can always lower the saddle if it's too tall... but I didn't want to shim them.
Lengthwise, the Martin saddles are considerably longer (1/4"?) than needed... Oddly, on 3 of the 4 I used, I had to trim mostly from the bass end to put the B string in the correct (I think?) compensation setback. This is one place I felt Bob's instructions could have been more clear... how the saddle was to be oriented with respect to the treble/bass strings, and where the strings should fall in the compensation setbacks. I think I got them right (I have four the same way now... with B and low E in the compensation setbacks). I would line up the old saddle so the mark or indent from the B string was in the middle of the compensation on the new saddle, marked the length on the new saddles, and cut with a razor saw so the new saddles was ~1/32 too long (I would sand to the final length AFTER sanding them to the correct height).
The next step was sanding the saddle to height... Apparently Guild saddles are considerably less tall than Martin saddles (some due to age and neck angle, I am sure, but also by design?)... there's a lot of bone to be removed. I started with 100 grit sandpaper duct-taped to my reasonably flat workbench, holding the saddle vertically so the bottom is flat and square, using a "length-wise" sanding motion as shown in Bob's directions. Once close, I switched to 320 grit garnet paper. It took about 10-15 minutes to bring a saddle down to my starting height. All along, I would occasionally check the saddle against a machinest straightedge to make sure they were flat. I collected the bone dust from the 320 paper, and used it as a source for filling nut slots (I didn't collect the dust from the 100 grit paper, because the grit was black, turning the dust greyish, and shedding some grit into the dust).
Next, I sanded the saddle to near final length, and round the end(s) as necessary. At this point, the saddle is still too thick to fit in the slot, so I just "eyeballed" the length as best I could by holding the too thick saddle above the slot.
From there, it's time to reduce the saddle to the correct thickness... Bob ships his saddles a little over 0.1" thick, while a standard 3/32" slot would be 0.094". I started with 320 grit garnet paper taped to the bench (again, saving the dust)... here the trick to to apply EVEN pressure while sanding down the thickness, so that you don't end up with thick/thin spots. It's was easier (for me) to keep uniform pressure by using 2-3 fingers of one (right) hand to press down on the middle of the saddle and "flanking" those with thumb and index fingers from the other (left) hand on the ends, as I pushed/pulled the flat side of the saddle on the sandpaper, with a motion across the height of the saddle (pics in the instructions show the sanding motion)... not lengthwise. I discovered this the "hard way" on my second saddle, when I didn't review the instructions and sanded in a lengthwise direction holding the ends with thumb and finger of one hand.... this applied more pressure on the ends, which ended up too thin (fortunately, my D-55 has a slightly thinner saddle slot, and I was able to rescue this saddle and put it in the D-55). This requires a lot of sanding and test fitting... I would take 4-6 strokes, flip the saddle, take 4-6 strokes on the other side, test fit, and repeat until I had a nice, snug but not tight fit into the slot. As I got close to the correct thickness, I would fine tune the length to make sure that was correct. Once close, I also switched to 400 grit paper... Once the saddle fit in the slot, I fine finished with 600 grit paper (I didn't polish my saddles).
Now, I would insert the saddle, re-string the guitar (still the old strings), bring it close to pitch, and measure the action... invariably it was higher than I wanted... so I'd loosen the strings, remove the saddle, sand a little off the bottom (to drop the 12th fret action 1/64", sand off 1/32"), string her up again... and repeat until I had the action where I wanted. This took from 3-6 iterations of sand, install, measure on the four saddles I installed (I did pop a few strings during this process on the 4 guitars).
The last step was rounding off any sharp edge created on the string bearing surface... then drop the saddle in, add new strings, and tune to pitch.
It took a couple hours for the first installation (my D-25), because I worked a bit slower the first time. I think it only took me an hour to install a saddle on my D-46 today... less time than it took me to type all this in and proof it.
I was happy enough with my first experience installing saddles on my D-25 and D-55 last week, that I ordered two more saddles and installed them in the D-50 and D-46 this week... and will probably finish out my remaining three next time they need new strings (summertime?).
Hope this helps someone else here take the leap and "upgrade" to as new bone saddle!
Most LTGers are probably aware of Bob and his products, and a I know a few of you have installed his saddles in your Guilds (or other guitars). I thought I would give a review of Bob Colosi's pre-shaped compensated saddles, and my experiences fitting them into my Guild dread (I didn't take any "in-progress" pics, but posted a finished product pic in chapter 1)....
I decided to try Bob's saddles because my D-50 needed a new saddle; the old saddle was not compensated (not that big a deal) and the string bearing surface was also improperly shaped. I also wanted to raise the saddle on my D-25 a bit, to eliminate some buzz when I strummed. So I started with two saddles, which Bob sells for $20 ea plus $6 shipping (per shipment). I got the standard "Martin drop-in" saddles, which are serpentine compensated. These are purposefully made over-sized, so that they can be individually fit to a guitar (these could probably be fit to any Guild using a drop-in 3/32" saddle). They need to be sanded to the correct height, width, and thickness... One caveat I should mention... I think that the saddles are radiused for a 12" fretboard... Guild fretboards are probably NOT uniform in radius, and from what folks have said, likely closer to 14" radius. This could make the action of the center strings just a little high... not something I have noticed in playing my dreads with the new saddles... maybe if enough folks started ordering, Bob would start making saddles fitted/radiused more for Guilds?
I ordered and paid thru Paypal on Sunday and had the saddles the following Friday (even faster with my second order, placed on Monday and received Friday)... so Bob's service was exemplery. The saddles were nicely shaped of a creamy white bone, and polished to a nice lustre. Bob sends good illustrated instructions on fitting and sanding the saddles to size... FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS!
The first step was pulling out the old saddle, and using it to mark the new saddle for height and length. With all four saddles, I used a rule and pencil to mark a line making the new saddles ~1/32" taller than the old... you can always lower the saddle if it's too tall... but I didn't want to shim them.
Lengthwise, the Martin saddles are considerably longer (1/4"?) than needed... Oddly, on 3 of the 4 I used, I had to trim mostly from the bass end to put the B string in the correct (I think?) compensation setback. This is one place I felt Bob's instructions could have been more clear... how the saddle was to be oriented with respect to the treble/bass strings, and where the strings should fall in the compensation setbacks. I think I got them right (I have four the same way now... with B and low E in the compensation setbacks). I would line up the old saddle so the mark or indent from the B string was in the middle of the compensation on the new saddle, marked the length on the new saddles, and cut with a razor saw so the new saddles was ~1/32 too long (I would sand to the final length AFTER sanding them to the correct height).
The next step was sanding the saddle to height... Apparently Guild saddles are considerably less tall than Martin saddles (some due to age and neck angle, I am sure, but also by design?)... there's a lot of bone to be removed. I started with 100 grit sandpaper duct-taped to my reasonably flat workbench, holding the saddle vertically so the bottom is flat and square, using a "length-wise" sanding motion as shown in Bob's directions. Once close, I switched to 320 grit garnet paper. It took about 10-15 minutes to bring a saddle down to my starting height. All along, I would occasionally check the saddle against a machinest straightedge to make sure they were flat. I collected the bone dust from the 320 paper, and used it as a source for filling nut slots (I didn't collect the dust from the 100 grit paper, because the grit was black, turning the dust greyish, and shedding some grit into the dust).
Next, I sanded the saddle to near final length, and round the end(s) as necessary. At this point, the saddle is still too thick to fit in the slot, so I just "eyeballed" the length as best I could by holding the too thick saddle above the slot.
From there, it's time to reduce the saddle to the correct thickness... Bob ships his saddles a little over 0.1" thick, while a standard 3/32" slot would be 0.094". I started with 320 grit garnet paper taped to the bench (again, saving the dust)... here the trick to to apply EVEN pressure while sanding down the thickness, so that you don't end up with thick/thin spots. It's was easier (for me) to keep uniform pressure by using 2-3 fingers of one (right) hand to press down on the middle of the saddle and "flanking" those with thumb and index fingers from the other (left) hand on the ends, as I pushed/pulled the flat side of the saddle on the sandpaper, with a motion across the height of the saddle (pics in the instructions show the sanding motion)... not lengthwise. I discovered this the "hard way" on my second saddle, when I didn't review the instructions and sanded in a lengthwise direction holding the ends with thumb and finger of one hand.... this applied more pressure on the ends, which ended up too thin (fortunately, my D-55 has a slightly thinner saddle slot, and I was able to rescue this saddle and put it in the D-55). This requires a lot of sanding and test fitting... I would take 4-6 strokes, flip the saddle, take 4-6 strokes on the other side, test fit, and repeat until I had a nice, snug but not tight fit into the slot. As I got close to the correct thickness, I would fine tune the length to make sure that was correct. Once close, I also switched to 400 grit paper... Once the saddle fit in the slot, I fine finished with 600 grit paper (I didn't polish my saddles).
Now, I would insert the saddle, re-string the guitar (still the old strings), bring it close to pitch, and measure the action... invariably it was higher than I wanted... so I'd loosen the strings, remove the saddle, sand a little off the bottom (to drop the 12th fret action 1/64", sand off 1/32"), string her up again... and repeat until I had the action where I wanted. This took from 3-6 iterations of sand, install, measure on the four saddles I installed (I did pop a few strings during this process on the 4 guitars).
The last step was rounding off any sharp edge created on the string bearing surface... then drop the saddle in, add new strings, and tune to pitch.
It took a couple hours for the first installation (my D-25), because I worked a bit slower the first time. I think it only took me an hour to install a saddle on my D-46 today... less time than it took me to type all this in and proof it.
I was happy enough with my first experience installing saddles on my D-25 and D-55 last week, that I ordered two more saddles and installed them in the D-50 and D-46 this week... and will probably finish out my remaining three next time they need new strings (summertime?).
Hope this helps someone else here take the leap and "upgrade" to as new bone saddle!
