Bridge position

[Pat.Hawkins]

Hi Folks,

Thank you for the great replies on Nut Placement and 14th fret position.

I'm now want to mark up my sound board with its bridge position and bracing.

I appreciate that the saddle is skewed, but how do I mark it out?
Do I measure from the 14th fret?

What are the distances?

Scale length is 25.4"
Cheers

[scuffle]

have a look here. It may be helpful
http://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator

it will tell you the distance from the fretboard side of the nut to the break angle point of the saddle for both E strings. just make sure you choose acoustic in the drop down menu!

[Mark McLean]

Pat
The critical thing to realize is that it is not about bridge position - it is about saddle position. You need to work out where your saddle is going to sit, then work out the location of the front edge of the bridge and of the bridge pins (assuming you have a pinned bridge), relative to where the saddle will be placed.

Most people route the saddle slot into the bridge before the bridge is glued onto the guitar. If you are going to do it this way you build in a predetermined amount of slant for the compensation at the time when you make that cut. Then you place the bridge onto the guitar so that the saddle ends up in the right place. What is the right place? First measure the actual scale length of your guitar, which is double the distance from the nut (or zero fret) to the crown of the 12th fret. Hopefully this will be the same as the scale length you thought you were creating when you cut the fret slots - but if it is not you need to use the actual scale length (measure it carefully, and more than once), not the theoretical length. Then place the saddle at scale length plus a bit for compensation. How much compensation depends on string gague, height of the action, intended tuning and other variables. However, a fairly good rule of thumb for an average steel string set-up in standard tuning is to have the front edge of the saddle at scale length + 2mm for the high e-string and scale length plus 5mm for the low e-string. You measure this from the nut (or zero fret, I keep saying that because I build with a zero fret), not from the body join. That 3mm slant over the inter-string distance is what you created when routing the slot at the beginning.

If you have a reasonable width of saddle you can then fine tune the compensation by filing the saddle to change the break point of the strings on the saddle top. Typically the b-string needs another1-2mm of scale length which is why a lot of pre-cut saddles already have that shaped in (look at a Taylor saddle if you don't know what I mean).

What I have just told you is from the "pretty good most of the time" school of lutherie. Perfect intonation is the holy grail of guitar building and you can recieve more precise tuition in that fine art from the high masters if you wish. See how you go.....
cheers
Mark

[tippie53]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJG5Frbu78c

this may help

[simso]

Pat, before you fit your bridge on, have you done all your heel work on the neck, is the neck in its final position against the body. It must be permanently mounted now before you fit that bridge unless of course its a bolt on neck

Steve

[tippie53]

The 14th fret had nothing to do with saddle position it is the 12th fret.