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Well y'all have definitely given me a lot to think about. Especially after seeing and hearing the Taylor.

Ok my pinless bridge came today. And in the ad it said the two "not fully drilled" holes were for screws to screw it on I guess? But I know some people drill holes in these and use dowels. Would any body know the best way to attach this bridge to the soundboard?

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In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
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_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

Check out F.O.F. Custom guitars on Facebook.

Www.fofcustomguitar.weebly.com

That's not correct. I've got an acoustic with a curly maple top less than 0.10" thick that I built 10 years ago. See my previous post.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

I could really use some help on the proper way to attach a pinless bridge. I have been looking and can only find people talking about the bridge itself and no installation procedures.

_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

Check out F.O.F. Custom guitars on Facebook.

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R.M. Mottola glues a pinless bridge in this tutorial, http://liutaiomottola.com/construction/GlueBridge.htm.

You can drill through the saddle slot and use pins to help relocate the bridge when gluing. Not sure if it's recommended or not but the positioning "pins" on my first guitar were just the drill bits I used to make the holes. I didn't rely on them completely but they certainly helped.

Thank you so much that was super helpful.

_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

Check out F.O.F. Custom guitars on Facebook.

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I glued my soundboard to my sides today and then routed around it with a trim bit so it looks pretty.
Due to design limitations, ( no hole and yes I know, I can open it later) I need to install my bridge before I can glue the back on. The scale is 25.5. Now the neck joins the body at the 15th and I have marked the 25.5 mark so I know the general area. I have done some reading and I know that I have 1/32 of an inch to screw up and that's not but a C hair so it freaks me out. And the whole thing about locating the angle of the saddle is what's confusing me. Would any body be able to give me the right measurements to locate the exact position of the bridge saddle from either the 15th or 1st fret.

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In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

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I mean the nut, and any tips or tricks will help.

_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

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So far I've been able to calculate using another 25.5 scale acoustic, that the high E or bottom string on the saddle at 25 & 1/4 and the low E or top string at 25 and 1/2.

_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

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I'm curious. I'm using this trussrod kit http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Truss_rods/ ... s_Rod.html. Now I know the adjusting nut is supposed to be at the top with the barrel nut at the heel. Can this be reversed so that I could adjust it from the heel instead? Basically reverse it?

_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

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Truss rod can be installed either way.

And here's a fret calculator... http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Fretting/i-fretcalc.html

I'm not so sure I'd use that Gibby style reversed. The main reason is it pretty much requires that the washer rests against
wood and that's integral to it's action. Plus, normally the barrel portion is installed north/south or "up/down" and since the
neck is pretty thin towards the top you might be pushing the limits of how much wood is left underneath.

I make this style for my electric builds and thought this through when I jumped into the acoustic, and for me, I just didn't
think it was best. Now, keep in mind this is only one man's opinion and I'm sure someone else will weigh with an opposing
view, but the key to have the adjustment on the bottom end, I would think is both access and asthetics.

Thanks guys again super helpful.

_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

Check out F.O.F. Custom guitars on Facebook.

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You can just glue it on after matching your top radius it should hold. I have put them on with dowels as well.

I had already postioned the bridge with 2 1/16" holes in the saddle slot. I never seem to be able to find the right side brad when I so I have just started using the upside down drill bit as a position pin. I first drilled the bridge on the drill press to get nice straight holes. Then I used the bridge itself pinned to the guitar to start the hole in the top. I finished the hole with the bridge off.







I took a bit of 1/4" dowel and chucked in my drill press and with a sanding block made the exact 15/64" inch dowel I was looking for. Cut them to the right size and CA glued them into the bridge.





A lesson to always dry fit. The sharp eye will note the bridge is slightly lifted. The dowel was a hair to long and when clamped against the gluing caul lifted the bridge. I sanded a bit of the dowel, rechecked and glued it on.

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That's really nice and and I appreciate your post that will come in handy when it's time to glue. But I need to go back to measuring and proper placement for a minute because this is really screwing with me bad. I used the calculator and it gave me measurements in decimal form which is cool and pretty exact but when I try to convert that to a measure I can use ( fraction ), I can't find a conversion. And I know I'm prolly being obtuse about this but math always messes with me. Not my strong suit if you get my meaning. E-guitar is simple but this is driving me nuts. Are y'all using some kind of digital measuring device? Am I wrong by using my trusty ruler. IDK but I'm in need of some serious tutoring. I get the whole compensation thing just lost on how to measure properly. Any way thanks everybody.

_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

Check out F.O.F. Custom guitars on Facebook.

Www.fofcustomguitar.weebly.com

I'm also using this saddle.


Says its a compensated saddle?

_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

Check out F.O.F. Custom guitars on Facebook.

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OK are you ready for some math.

Take just the decimal part of your number, every thing to the right of the dot and multiply it by the bottom of the smallest fraction on your ruler. As an example lets take 1/32 and a decimal value of .262 So 32 x .262 = 8.384. Now either round the number up or down. In this case I will round down because .384 is less than .5. So 8. The fraction is 8/32 or 1/4. You can bias your rounding depending on what you are doing.

Using the same .262, lets say my ruler lets me do 1/64th. So I multiply .262 x 64 and I get 16.786. This time because .786 is greater than .5 I round up to 17. So I have 17/64.

At the end of the calculation you add the fraction back to the number that was to the left of the decimal point.

That is how to match a decimal to a ruler.

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That's a compensated saddle, in backwards, but the compensation is only for the weirdness of the strings. You still need to add a compensation to the scale length. A compensated saddle does not really effect your bridge placement.

I not sure how you are doing compensation but here is one way I got from John Hall.

Double the distance from nut to 12th, add 1/8", and place the front edge of the saddle at the high E at that measurement.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Wow!!!!! Teach a man to fish!!!! I think I can handle that. Thank you soooo much for that.

_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

Check out F.O.F. Custom guitars on Facebook.

Www.fofcustomguitar.weebly.com

All right using the math above saddle at bass end 25.589 and take .589 X 32 = 18.848, round it to 19 since .848 is higher than .5 so that gives me a measurement of 25 & 19/32. Is that right? It seems like its too much.

_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

Check out F.O.F. Custom guitars on Facebook.

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Correction treble end.

_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

Check out F.O.F. Custom guitars on Facebook.

Www.fofcustomguitar.weebly.com

Seems about right. The math is correct.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Sorry, forgot you aren't using a two way truss rod….I agree that switching around the one you have might not be a good idea.

All right just too make things easier I decided to go ahead and start fitting my neck to the body so I can make completely sure I get the bridge located right. I'll post a pic once I get it ready to bolt on and I'll tell you why. I first started this part by finding the top dead center of my neck and body marking the parts I wanted to route or remove and then clamping the neck upside down and vertical with a couple boards clamped on either side to give my router a flat surface to work off. Just like you use a neck jig. After measuring the bolts I decided for a straight joint top to bottom at 1 inch in by 1 inch wide. That give my bolts enough room to be 1 inch in the neck block and 1 inch inside the neck. All right so after all that I pick the right bit to use install it put it in my jig and OMFG it cut through that maple like it was air. So I quickly stopped it but too late it's a lil ugly. Fortunately I usually error on the side of caution and made the neck joint a lil wider than it needed to be so a lil filing and it'll be fine. For the body joint I went to my friend and we set up the table say to cut a series slots in the the block then just pushing the excess wood out. Still needs a lil work too but not nearly as much as the neck. Yea it's a lil work but I have nothing else to do this week so I'll be fine. Next time I'll use the table saw to begin with, much easier when your just making a straight slot.

All right I ran across this most famous of guitars, I'm sure we'll all recognize this piece but just in case you don't know its Willie Nelson's guitar "trigger". What makes this such a fine instrument? And especially with the damage it's incurred? What keeps it from catastrophic failure. I know that Martin tried to duplicate it, whether or not they succeeded IDK. And did they try knocking holes in theirs?

_________________
In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.
- Carl Sagan

Check out F.O.F. Custom guitars on Facebook.

Www.fofcustomguitar.weebly.com