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I am finishing up an acoustic lap slide, and made my own bridge so I could rout an uncompensated saddle slot. I recently played a small shop high end guitar and noticed the saddle was angled back toward the headstock, rather than vertical. Interested in this - I did some research here on the forum reading that some of you like to angle the slot back slightly, one reason being it may help relieve some stress on the bridge, specifically preventing splitting the bridge. This caught my notice, because I plan on using a higher saddle to keep the strings fairly parallel to the fretboard (about 1/2" off the fretboard). I figure that will increase the stress on the bridge from the longer lever action of the taller saddle, and thought perhaps angling the slot might be a good idea here.

My question is - has anybody noticed any particular change in tone, sound quality, or volume from doing this? Advantages? Disadvantages? I couldn't really tell any opinion on this on the posts I researched, so I apologize if it's a subject that has been well covered already!

Thanks,

Damon

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Damon Wack
https://www.facebook.com/LindamonGuitars

You will some issues with this as the guitar ages and changes geometry. As you need to lower the saddle , this will make the comp length of the string longer throwing the intonation flat. Tonally you won't gain anything and you will lose some from the dampening effects of the saddle material on a slant.
I have seen a few guitars like this and have had to replace a few saddles that cracked .

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

You mean angled toward the rear of the guitar? I've never seen a saddle angled toward the headstock, except when it cracked the front of the bridge.
Typically some builders angle the saddle a few degrees back, the thinking being that when the saddle needs to be lowered, it will not affect intonation (length remains the same). The added advantage is that string tension pushes the saddle toward the bottom of the slot, rather than toward the front of the bridge.
I've done it this way on a few guitars and went back to a 90º slot.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I have seen this (saddle angles toward to headstock) when the saddle slot was too wide for the saddle. Of course, this is not a good thing either...

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

I've seen several people angle the saddle back towards the tail of the guitar, primarily because they were cracking the front of their pyramid bridges. Think the idea was that it would drive the bottom of the saddle into the slot and take some of the stress off the front of the bridge. The other way would add more stress plus things would go sharp as you lowered the saddle.

Tim

It's been a month, so I could be mis-remembering which way the saddle went, so perhaps I am wrong, I'll find out. Senior moments!

Todd - I understand why you don't need to worry about changing the saddle height since the action doesn't matter on a slide played with a steel - but why do you bother to angle the saddle in the first place? What advantages make it worth the trouble? (I haven't built my jig yet to do the slot.) Why is the ideal angle 1/2 the string break angle?

thanks,
Damon

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Damon Wack
https://www.facebook.com/LindamonGuitars

Thanks Todd, that is why I thought I might tilt it, since the saddle is going to be a good 1/8" or more taller than a regular saddle it would have a longer lever arm to push against the sides of the slot.

Have you made any without tilting the slot? Do you think that affects the way the saddle rocks the bridge when the string is plucked, thus affecting the sound generated? Just curious.

Damon

BTW, noticed you were a pilot in one of your other posts - you don't happen to know a crazy dentist/Pitts dealer name of Bill Finagin up your way by any chance?

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Damon Wack
https://www.facebook.com/LindamonGuitars

Angling the saddle back reduces the tipping force of the static load, as has been pointed out. When the saddle bisects the break angle, there is no net tipping force. This is how fiddles can get away with those tall, skinny bridges. The bisecting angle also gives the greatest static down force on the bottom of the sadde, which makes piezo USTs work better.

The actual signal from the transverse and tension change forces of the vibrating string will be the same no matter what the angle of the saddle. These forces might drive the top differently if the saddle is distorted in some way. Again, fiddles can be instructive here (one of the few really good parallels). If the bridge on a fiddle is set up at the wrong back angle it will start to warp, usually cupping on the front side (toward the neck). When it does the string forces that should be transmitted to the top via compression end up just bending the bridge instead, and a lot of thr sound is wasted. I used to be able to pick out a bent fiddle bridge from quite a distance, simply by the characteristic sound. On a guitar, of course, what usually happens is that the saddle slot splits out, and then you have real problems.

Yes, Todd, and he had a white horse that could jump a whole block.

Thanks Alan, great information. Makes sense with the fiddle comparison.

And thanks for the picture, Todd. I hadn't thought of raising the bridge height when I built my new saddle. I decided to build a new one because I had already taped off the guitar, stained and shot the first coat of lacquer before I realized I probably didn't want a compensated slot in the saddle I was using (Stew-Mac). So I built one to match the taped profile, and wonder of wonders, it fits perfectly. But it's basically a copy of the standard Stew-Mac Martin style. On future lap slide guitars, now that I have built most of my jigs (slot cutting jig to go), I'll just build my own, it wasn't that difficult or time consuming, and I'll raise the bridge height some. At some point I want to try a Weissenborn style as well.

I take your point on most pilots being a little crazy, but Bill is special...

Bill Finagin is an old friend I got to know through flying competition aerobatics back in the nineties He's retired from the Navy, but I don't think he flew much, if any, there. He's been a Pitts dealer for a long time, and does a LOT of instruction (spin training, basic and advanced aerobatics, emergency maneuver training) out of the Annapolis area somewhere. We have a lot of military types flying competition, so I thought it possible your paths might have crossed. Very entertaining fellow.

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Damon Wack
https://www.facebook.com/LindamonGuitars