Classical Guitar Bridge Placement

[Diane Kauffmds]

Hi everyone,

To begin with, I completely understand intonation, so my question is simple. I have a classical guitar, with a straight uncompensated bridge; the bridge placement difference, between treble E and bass E is .127". The classical guitars that I've seen have their bridges square to the neck.

Is it better to slant the bridge to compensate, or is the compensation done completely with the nut and saddle? 1/8" seems a lot to try to compensate by filing the saddle.

Thank you!

[johnnparchem]

The compensation is most typically done on the saddle, there are some that do nut compensation as well, but that usually involved moving the nut toward the body a 1-2 mm from the zero slot and compensating back toward the zero slot. I have seen slanted saddle slots on classical guitars but not that many. The difference in the thickness of the strings are not nearly as large as on a steel string so the intonation is less of an issue. I have not seen a deliberately slanted bridge used with a single scale fret board.

[Diane Kauffmds]

The compensation is most typically done on the saddle, there are some that do nut compensation as well, but that usually involved moving the nut toward the body a 1-2 mm from the zero slot and compensating back toward the zero slot. I have seen slanted saddle slots on classical guitars but not that many. The difference in the thickness of the strings are not nearly as large as on a steel string so the intonation is less of an issue. I have not seen a deliberately slanted bridge used with a single scale fret board.

Thank you!