Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey guys...need some help:

I am currently setting up my latest acoustic, and I am having a wierd oddity.
Currently, I am only in the rough stages, and just have a 'high' saddle that is roughly rounded over. I have a linear non-segmented saddle. The saddle is a little loose to the slot, about 0.01 - 0.012", so I plane on remaking it anyway. The saddle is 0.15" wide. Here is what I have.

E - < 2 cents sharp
B - < 4 cents sharp
G - < 2 cents sharp
D - < 4 cents sharp
A - < 8 cents sharp
E - < 30 cents sharp

I am planning on increasing the width of the saddle by another 0.03", which is about the maximum that I can do (I made an additional small set up error when laying out the bridge position in that it is about 0.1" too close to the nut, eliminating a good amount of saddle slotting and set up room. I just cannot figure out why the low E is so far out in left field! The action is still high....I just don't know...


Has anyone ever run any calculations on saddle adjustments and frequency changes based on string gage? Would that be a helpful thing to take the time to do and post?

Thanks!

Stephen

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www.ziegenfussguitars.com

If the saddle is still too high that will affect the inotation. Try bringing it down to nearly final height.

Stephen my friend that E at <30 cents sharp sounds like an error to me.. 30 cents is a LOT and if you factor in .007" of adjustment/movement per cent which is a decent ballpark figure that I learned that would be an adjustment at the saddle for this string of .210".... See what I mean? Perhaps the nut slot is not letting the string begin it's speaking length at the absolute nut face?

Let us know that you find out this is interesting?

Thanks Hesh and Jeff,

I checked it and double checked it and that was definately what I was getting...a massive error. However, after making sure that I did not do anything seriously stupid with the set up using the trust saddlematic jig, I proceeded tentatively with setup.

I roughly dropped the nut slots to where I wanted them, then proceeded to drop the saddle to a rough setup height - about 1.7mm at the 12th under the low E, and 1.4mm under the high E. That helped considerably, bringing the low E down to about 10 cents sharp on the intonation. After I completed the setup with the nut and the saddle, bringing the action down to approximately 1.5mm at 12th on the low E and 1mm at the 12th on the high E, everything was still just a little off - between 5-8 cents. Once I made a new saddle that fit the slot more tightly, and individually intonated each sting to the best of my ability, I am a little closer than that - to where it is not really noticeable (I never know what to do below 5 cents because of how much the relative intonation seems to change depending on how hard you fret, pluck, pull, etc...)

Bottom line, the guitar sounds awesome and I am really happy that nothing crazy went on.

Thanks for your help.

_________________
www.ziegenfussguitars.com

You can also capo the 1st. fret and check the 13th. fret and then remove the capo and check the 12th. to see how the compensation of the nut looks. I've always read that within 5 cents is good enough because of what you already mentioned as to attack and how hard someone frets and bends the string and even pulls on the neck. But the closer you can get it the less the margin of error.