Bob Colosi and a saddle question

Antney

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i had a nice chat on the phone with Bob Colosi and sent him down my chewed up plastic pins and plastic saddle. six days later I had back PERFECTLY fitting bone pins and saddle. awesome guy to deal with, i think i got the recommendation here to use him, so thanks for the reference.

i have a question...i noticed some saddles are notched for the strings and some aren't. Is there a sonic reason to notch or not to notch?
 

GAD

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Bob Colosi is awesome. I've bought a couple of saddles and some bridge pins from him over the years and I've always been pleased with the product and service.
 

chazmo

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Always heard good things about Bob Colosi. Glad to hear you were satisfied.

As for notching, I wasn't sure what you were asking about... Are you referring to the actual saddle, or did you mean the bridge? If you meant the saddle, are you referring to the compensation, or did you actually mean some sort of notch for the string to lay in?
 

AcornHouse

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The string groove is common in pins, but many luthiers feel that ungrooved pins provide better contact and sound transference. The do require that the ball end be oriented with the flat sides parallel to the neck, to avoide chewing up the bridge plate. That’s why grooves are popular in lesser pins, they are more forgiving.
 

Antney

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Sorry for the confusion... I'm referring to the saddle. I've seen some with grooves for the strings to set into and others without. Is there any sonic difference or advantage to with or without?
 

Rayk

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Sorry for the confusion... I'm referring to the saddle. I've seen some with grooves for the strings to set into and others without. Is there any sonic difference or advantage to with or without?

I’ve not seen that unless they worn in grooves , is this on a new guitar ?
 

chazmo

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Right, what Ray said, Antney. Possibly this would be useful with a trapeze (old school) bridge, but any pinned bridge should present enough downforce to keep the string in place on the saddle without a groove. If your strings are slipping on the saddle then you probably don't have correct (or any) break angle over the saddle, and that's probably a sign that your guitar needs neck work. I'm not familiar with any luthiers grooving the saddle itself. The process, as I understand it, is usually to shape the saddle for individual string height and then shave the bottom of the saddle to lower the whole thing at once. I suppose a groove would be a way to fine-tune the height thing rather than shaping the whole saddle.
 

CosmicArkie

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By putting a small notch in the saddle one can round over the leading and tailing edges and avoid the dreaded "ping" of the wound strings hanging on the sharp edge as you tune it up.
 

Antney

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perhaps they're just old saddles im looking at. the saddle i replaced was the original 25 year old saddle and had some fine grooves worked into it. the new bone is smooth as a baby's behind and fit's perfectly into the slot. once again, thanks for referring me to bob colosi...a real craftsman if i ever met one.
 

chazmo

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CosmicArkie, you get that at the bridge? I've had that happen at the nut, but not at the bridge. One of the Taylor videos that shows how they string guitars shows some stretching of the string and locking it into the pinned bridge. I think that's a pretty good system, and again I don't ever get that ping from the bridge.

Antney, sounds great. Enjoy!
 

Stuball48

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Speck of graphite dust in nut slot stopped snapping or popping sound. No problem with saddle, yet.
 

CosmicArkie

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Just thinking out loud. Prolly not a safe thing to do given what wanders around in my head.

I recently replaced a bone saddle which, after I tuned up the 4th string, chipped a little bit on the soundhole side of saddle. Led me to believe there was a bit of a rather sharp shoulder on the saddle that might need to be slightly rounded off/graphited.
 

chazmo

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Cos, you might well be right about why that saddle chipped, but if you tug/stretch that string a bit by hand over the saddle like Taylor recommends before tuning it up you shouldn't have that phenomenon.
 

Antney

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I cannot believe the difference the bone saddle and pins have made with my guitar. It's louder, more balanced, less muddy, each string has a clarity it lacked with the original plastic. If you're considering going bone, I would say do it...cost me $74 and was well worth it.
 
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