Compensated "Overhang" Saddle; pricy but cool idea!

[wileypickett]

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A number of my Guilds came to me with intonation problems.

Some were slight enough that I could live with them being a little off, but there were a couple that were off enough that it drove me crazy. On those, the bass end of the saddle was too far forward.

To correct for that, I once had a similar idea to this inventor. I Krazy-glued a second saddle behind the main one. I sanded the main one down so it was lower than one behind it, and made sure it was enough above the saddle slot that it didn't rest on the bridge.

It kinda sorta worked, but it was so clunky looking and inelegent I ended up just filling the old saddle slots with matching wood and routing a new slot at the proper angle.

The price a luthier would charge for doing that might be less than this innovative little doohickey costs, but I'm always impressed at some people's ingenuity.

 

[chazmo]

That is very cool, and a nice piece of carving! Looks pretty "beefy" despite the overhang and doesn't look like it'd break easily (which would be my only concern for this kind of design).

 

[wileypickett]

It's something for such a very narrowly specific problem. Even with all the questions you have to answer so they can tailor it to your guitar, it seems like there would still be a lot of variables.

Your average player might have trouble making it work without taking it to a luther.

 

[kostask]

My luthier has been doing this for over 20 years, for the guitars that need it. All he does is glue another saddle blank, of reduced height, to the original, and then he re-intonates the guitar. This is done only for guitars that have intonation issues on the two strings (high or low) at the end of the saddle. If the entire saddle is out, it is put wood into the existing slot, and re-cut the slot.

 

[wileypickett]

I suspected I wasn't the first to think of it, and no doubt your luthier is far more adept than I am!

On the one I did, there was enough saddle height showing above the bridge (barely!) to glue a second saddle to it. It worked, and with a little time finessing it with the Dremel sanding disc, I might have made it look less dorky.

But in the end I just routed a new saddle slot, which probably took less time to do than building the double saddle did.

 

[Uke]

Your average player might have trouble making it work without taking it to a luthier

Yep!

 

[kostask]

To add a further note, he doesn't call it an overhang saddle, but a ledged saddle. Because he has been doing this for a fairly long time, it doesn't really take much time. He doesn't do a lot of measuring, he just uses a pencil to make a line at where the bridge abuts against the back side of the original saddle, makes the "ledge" part a little short of that and even with the top and sides of the original saddle, erases the line, glues the ledge on, and then intonates.

 

[Boneman]

I’ve heard once in a while Guilds came from the factory with intonation problems, and sounds as if that could be the case based on your experience and why it’s not so common. Although the reasoning I was told is because the workers would misalign the bridge slightly during assembly. (and if so, it seems their QC department probably wasn’t the best). Would seem that could be the case, if the ledged saddle or a new saddle slot fixed things.

 

[kostask]

My restored F-50R had the saddle in the wrong place, found during the restoration. The bridge was being replaced anyway, so not as big a deal as it may be thought, but the bridge pin holes were filled and moved back about 1/16".

 

[donnylang]

I think people were just less picky about this stuff in the ‘60s-‘70s ha. I don’t fault the original craftspeople who made Guilds for an occasional “hmm close enough!” … but I do appreciate good intonation on the other hand.

Apparently a certain period for Martin guitars were very bad for this. I had a ‘67 D12-20 in which a luthier basically completely changed the saddle location by about the width of the entire saddle to get it right.

 

[wileypickett]

I assume the guitars were well intonated when they left the factory, but that decades of string pull and changes to the wood as it aged affected the intonation. But who knows?

The strangest intonation problem I've ever seen on a Guild though was on Jeff's (a/k/a Walrus') D64, which I bought from him some years ago. It was a righty guitar, but the saddle had been routed for a left-handed guitar, i.e.: the saddle was closer to the neck on the bass side and farther away on the treble!

Jeff bought the guitar new, was its only owner, and never had it modified, so apparently it left the factory like that.

It was sold as a factory second, so possibly someone fell asleep at the switch and glued a lefty bridge to a righty guitar, and someone else discovered the mistake before it made it out the door.

I had the old saddle slot filled and new one routed. One of the best Guilds I own.

 

[stormin1155]

I recently had a three-year-old D-28 in my shop that the bridge was set at the factory off by 1/8".