Improving Intonation on Guitar No. 2

[Eric Knapp]

I didn't have the bridge placement tool when I glued the bridge on my second guitar. It ended up too close to the nut and the intonation was not good enough. I improved it by making a 14" saddle out of a piece of antler I had from a pet store. That store sells antlers that are cut in half lenghwise so you can see how thick the dense part it.

So far the intonation is about perfect except for the G string. That's not a surprise to anyone, I guess. I thought it look interesting enough that I'd share.

The guitar is sounding really good to me. However, I don't have any others to compare it to. I have a neighbor with a Taylor who'll try it soon and I hope he likes it a bit.

Here's the new saddle.

Here's the guitar next to my Gibson Johnny Smith. That's the high standard that I aspire to, it's the best playing guitar I've ever played. I used to gig with it many years ago.

-Eric

[Eric Knapp]

That would be a 1/4" saddle, not a 14" saddle. Heh.

[Mark McLean]

Hi Eric
That guitar looks really fine in the shot next to the Gibson. The top colour is especially nice. The wide saddle gives you lots of real estate to dial in the intonation. One comment - I think you could shape the back side of the saddle more, to slope it down towards the pin holes. Perhaps the angle of the photo is deceiving me, but it looks like you have a fairly wide flat section on top (especially for the low E and the A strings. Flat spots can create a tendency for the string to buzz on the saddle and make a sitar-type sound.

[Eric Knapp]

Hi Eric
That guitar looks really fine in the shot next to the Gibson. The top colour is especially nice. The wide saddle gives you lots of real estate to dial in the intonation. One comment - I think you could shape the back side of the saddle more, to slope it down towards the pin holes. Perhaps the angle of the photo is deceiving me, but it looks like you have a fairly wide flat section on top (especially for the low E and the A strings. Flat spots can create a tendency for the string to buzz on the saddle and make a sitar-type sound.

Thanks, Mark. I will make those adjustments. I think I should wait for the strings to settle down a bit, they're still stretching. Some strings at some frets do have a sitar sound and I knew I'd need to chase that down. Thanks for the tip.

The top is reclaimed redwood and really took a nice finish. I used Tru-Oil for the first time and I think I like it a lot.

-Eric

[Barry Daniels]

That saddle needs a lot of shaping so that it doesn't detract from the beauty of the guitar.

[Eric Knapp]

That saddle needs a lot of shaping so that it doesn't detract from the beauty of the guitar.

Absolutely, I wanted to get this guitar playable as I'm just a rookie and it's exciting.

I'm now looking for examples of good looking wider saddles and I'll share what I do.

-Eric

[Mark McLean]

Yep, having the wider saddle gives you options. But if you are going to optimize the result you want to determine the actual point, for each string separately, where the break point needs to be. In your other thread about bridge placement people offered advice about how to determine this. One way is to put an unshaped, flat topped saddle blank into the slot - and string it up. Start with low E-string and determine the correct break point for that string by placing a short piece of fine wire (a segment cut from a 0.015” or similar gauge “B string” is ideal for this) between the saddle and the underside of the string. This acts as a super fine wire saddle sitting on top of the wider bone blank. Tune the E-string to pitch and test the intonation (12th fret harmonic note versus the 12th fret fretted note). If the fretted note is sharp, move the wire break point slightly towards the tail of the guitar, and repeat. Once you find the point where the fretted note equals the harmonic note mark that with a sharp pencil or a scribe on the top of the saddle blank. Repeat this for each if the six strings. You now know where the front face of your bone saddle should be and you can discard the bit of wire and file the bone blank to connect those points. The back side of your saddle (towards the pin holes) should then drop away from the break points. Not a flat plateau - a steady roll downhill towards the pin for each string.

One caveat for this process is don’t do it with an overly high saddle blank because the resulting high action will alter the assessment of intonation. You want the action at the 12th fret to be pretty close to your intended playing action when you do this process.

[Alan Carruth]

You may also want to compensate the nut to get the best possible intonation, but doing so will change the break points at the saddle. There's a bit of leeway on this; Although in theory there's one 'right' answer a range of setting can work well enough.

However you do it, intonation is about the last thing you do in the setup, since any change in action height at either end, of relief, will alter it a bit. Don't let the strings get too old; that messes up the intonation too...

The sitar sound is likely enough to be from a flat saddle top. Good sitars use a wide (1/2" or so), very slightly rounded saddle. As the string moves 'down' the contact point rolls up toward the front of the saddle, and as it goes 'up' the contact point rolls back. The length of the string changes smoothly by 1/2" per cycle, which spreads out the pitch. Cheap sitars use a piece of thread under the string at the back edge of a flat saddle, so that the string 'slaps' the front as it vibrates. The difference between the two systems is audible if you know what to listen for.