Saddle Routing

Here are some pics of one of my favorite jobs... routing saddle slots. This is one of my favorite jobs because this is probably my favorite jig to use. I like to rout saddle slots on the guitar, with the bridge already located and glued. In most circumstances this enables us to actually intonate the proper location for the saddle... a unique privilege for an acoustic guitar. Electric guitars have movable saddles, which makes adjusting the intonation easy. Acoustic guitars have a fixed saddle placement.

So, this series shows two guitars having their saddle slots routed. The first one is a classical, which I was just widening the slot for the purpose of making it clean and true... the original slot was ugly... so I was just making it right. The second guitar is an old Harmony. I was showing Nate (my repair assistant) how to set up the jig and make the rout.

Setting up the jig.














Routing the slot.

Done. (But not a very good pic.)



















Nate's turn. Checking the alignment of the jig.














Routing and watching.














Done. Hard to see the slot in this pic. We routed this as a "through saddle slot," like what you see on older vintage guitars (or vintage-style guitars.)













-- Ryan Elewaut

Mando Acclimation

Here is a repair I did about a year ago. I replaced the bridge foot on this Stiver mandolin with one I fabricated from an ebony blank. The need for this repair was due to a typical northern Arizona instrument problem. The mandolin had dried out and "acclimated" to our dry environment, which altered the geometry of the instrument. The neck angle was so high that the original bridge could not be raised tall enough to yield appropriate playing action... strings were too low to the fingerboard and it was buzzing like crazy. While I was at it, I leveled frets and setup the mandolin as perfectly as possibly with a new bone nut.








After making the new bridge foot, it was important to sand the bottom of it to precisely match the contour of the mandolin top.








This enables the best transfer of sound vibration from the strings, through the bridge, and into the body of the instrument. Anything other than an absolute perfect fit is unacceptable in this case.









Here you can see the old bridge foot,














the new one made from scratch,














and both side-by-side.



The new bridge foot is almost 1/4" taller than the old one. I made it just tall enough for the strings to setup at the proper height once the bridge saddle was put into place on the posts. I didn't want to make the new piece any larger than necessary. By making it as close to the original size as possible the original sound of the instrument would be preserved as much as possible.




I didn't take any final pictures of the completed project. But this repair was a complete success and the customer was extremely pleased with the renewed playability of the instrument.

(Post Script) It should be noted that trying to purposely acclimate a fine instrument (such as this one) to the dry humidity of Flagstaff is usually unrecommended, if not highly discouraged. It is much easier on the instrument, and on you as the owner to simply invest in and learn how to use the appropriate humidifier, and more importantly get in the habit of keeping the instrument properly hydrated. The owner of this instrument was lucky we didn't have cracks to fix or any major structural repair, worse than what we saw, anyway.

-R.E.