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Good Morning,

#2 is ready for final sanding and buffing. Yay! Before I do I just wanted to be sure the neck angle and height above the bridge with a straight edge is acceptable.

There is about 1/8" between bridge and straight edge. The frets are in but no leveling has been done. The neck is flat, no relief. I still need to skin a hair off the underside, outside edge of the bridge to accomadate the finish.

And another photo.

Thanks for your help,
Danny

Hi Danny,

That's to high. Your saddle will be very very high and cause a lot of torque on the bridge, especially the front edge.

If you think about the geometry. Wanting to have say 0.095-0.110" action on the low E string, you have to multiply that by 2 for the bridge height. So if you start with 0.125" clearance between the fret plane and the top of the bridge, you'll have almost a 1/4" of saddle sticking out of the bridge, which is pretty high.

I like to have no more than 1/16" and prefer to have 1/32" or a smidge less of a gap between the top of the bridge and the plane of the fret board with the frets on. But between 1/32" and 1/16" is ok too. The top will pull up and the neck pull forward when the strings are on and after a couple of weeks, the guitar will have settled into it's basic state (changing over time from the string pull, but only minutely year to year, generally speaking of course) and this will allow the saddle to be about 1/8"-3/16" over the top of the bridge.

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Well, my math is off by a bit in my first post.

It should have been

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"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

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Danny,

I'll second what Rod says. I shoot for 1/32-1/16" as well.

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Brad Tucker

Sorry to hijack a little, but it would result that in theory, without frets, the line should be touching the bridge, take or add a hair? And the bridge is normally about 1/3" tall? I'm planing to start building an OM and it seem the geometry is even more different than what i thought. With my classical guitars I got the unfretted FB plane to be only 1/8 above the guitar top, or even less.

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Build log

With frets installed, the straight edge should be 1/16" above the top of the bridge....1/32" minimum, but 1/16" would
be best.

Take the time to get it right now and you'll be happy that you did.

All the best,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

Yes Alex, you are correct.
I set my neck without frets and place my straight edge right on top of the bridge minimum to 1/32" above maximum.

Steve

I second what Kevin said. I personally shoot for the 1/16th measurement. It gives me a bit more wiggle room for adjusting the action during the first year of the guitar's life.

Thanks all! Necks on, bridge is glued. I'm so close I can almost hear it.

Danny

I'm with everyone else on 1/16" clearance. You can support the headstock and put 5 or 6 lbs of weight on each shoulder and get a ball park idea where it will be under string tension. The straightedge should just barely clear
the front of the bridge.
Terry

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Thanks for the great tip Terry. I'm a little late for it to make a difference now but it's locked away, well, maybe I should write it down........

Thanks Again,
Danny