first acoustic guitar build cont'd...need to buy a bridge

[carld05]

What bridge did you end up with? Does the saddle you bought fit firmly into the slot in the bridge?
The measurements I have been using lately for bridge SLOT placement come from Mattolla's compensation chart. Since this is your first guitar might as well figure out how to get that intonation right, it'll help with all the rest of them you build (and you will). https://www.liutaiomottola.com/formulae ... sation.htm. Use the straight bridge numbers, e and E. Get a good 3' ruler with 10's of an inch one side and fractions on the other. Try Taylor Tools on eBay for best price for that. John's suggestion for the compensated saddle is a great start if it fits the bridge slot tightly (doesn't tip front to back).

[beginner]

thank you for the link....i'll review it just now. appreciate the help

[tippie53]

YES

[phavriluk]

Locating bridges - - - I've seen a lot of incantations uttered and incense burnt in association with locating bridges. Mr. Occam to the rescue: If you won't faint at the price, once the saddle's thickness is accounted for, I have found the Stew-Mac 'Saddlematic to be a very easy to use and accurate tool for locating bridges. I watched a luthier execute the bones-and-feathers ritual twice on my projects. Then he gave me a Saddlematic. I located the bridge using that tool on my next project and before I glued it down I visited him again and asked the luthier to do it his way. Identical. Been using the Saddlematic ever since then.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Make that two cheers for the saddlematic! I've been using it successfully for 16 years.

[MaineGeezer]

FWIW, to locate the bridge and saddle I started stringing up one string from a tuner to some sort of anchor point attached to the end pin, running it over the to-be glued down bridge and saddle. I cranked it up to a "reasonable" pitch and slid the saddle+bridge back and forth until the "chime" at the 12th fret matched the fretted 12th fret. Mark that bridge location, take off the temporary string attached to the end pin, put the bridge back on the marks, and glue it down.

[beginner]

thank you....trying to figure out how to do this
appreciate the help

[Tomcat]

FWIW, to locate the bridge and saddle I started stringing up one string from a tuner to some sort of anchor point attached to the end pin, running it over the to-be glued down bridge and saddle. I cranked it up to a "reasonable" pitch and slid the saddle+bridge back and forth until the "chime" at the 12th fret matched the fretted 12th fret. Mark that bridge location, take off the temporary string attached to the end pin, put the bridge back on the marks, and glue it down.

Since the strings are slightly different lengths, which string do you use to match the octave fretted vs harmonic? Do you try more than one?

[jack25]

Always match the fretted and harmonic note on the same string.
Then repeat for the others — don’t mix between strings.

[MaineGeezer]

RE: Tomcat: I generally used the G string and trusted that the saddle angle (I put the treble end about 1/8" ahead of the bass end) would make the others "close enough." As you may surmise, after the first three or four, I was not very rigorous in my approach to building guitars. I've never been very good at following directions.