Lyn #14 - Solid-body Acoustic

[FrankenWashie]

Unfortunately, once known, it can't be un-known, and it's going to haunt Robin until he can fix it. It would do that to me.

I get like that sometimes, but i find my muddling tends to make the situation worse. I have finally, after years, managed to stop myself from frustrated tinkering and just walk away from such issues until I am in the right head space to look at them properly.

@Robin i think you're best to do as you've planned and enjoy it as is and slowly analyse what needs to happen next, its not going to go anywhere and there's no real rush eh?

[robin]

Yep, spot on Frankie. I doubt I'll do much more on her (other than tinker) before Christmas. I might enjoy a bit of a break and just get used to playing open chords for a change. lol.

But by the same token my policy has always been that my guitars stand or fall by how they play, not by how they look or even how they sound. If I don't enjoy playing a guitar then I won't play it and then its no more than a wall hanging, and there is no way that #14 is going to be my first wall hanging. Lol.

cheers mate.

[Simon Barden]

Yes, take your time and explore all the other possibilities first. If the bridge did have to come off, you could always make your own new bridge, but make it larger, so that it would cover up all the area currently covered by the current bridge, plus a bit more towards the rear. That would save having to refinish the top.

Rather than move the bridge back, one other solution would be to move the neck forwards a bit. It would mean filling in the existing holes in the neck, and redrilling once you had discovered the correct location for the neck - but it's nothing that others haven't done before. The position of the last two screw holes right in the pocket might mean that they would now be too close to the end of the neck if that was moved forwards a bit, and the neck might split at the end. So this might mean drilling some new screw holes in the body - which in itself causes you some problems. You could try and find a suitable neck plate (or make one) that could cover up the old holes if you went down this route. Or you could even simply drill two more screw holes and add cup inserts a bit further away from the end of the neck, and glue in two dummy screws to the existing (now-unused) sockets to give you the appearance of a six bolt neck, whilst actually it still being a four-bolt neck.

You could use slivers of veneer at the end of the pocket to fill any gap left. You could clamp the neck in place whilst fitting the top and bottom E strings, then keep adding more slivers of veneer until both the E strings were correctly intonated up to the 12th fret. Then glue the veneer slivers in place, drill the neck and put it all back together. With the right veneer choice (e.g. alternating light/dark slivers), it could look like a simple decorative adornment.

[robin]

Thanks Simon, I hope I don't have to go down some of the roads you mentioned, but its good to know that there are lots of options yet unexplored.

I'm hoping that the solution may be tweaking the saddle, but as you said, no rush.

[Simon Barden]

Just throwing out some ideas while I remember!

[dingobass]

From what you have said, it might be worth while making a compensated saddle.
You can also overcome some of the intonation problems with a compensated nut, but thatmight cause you to have a brain attack as they are a bit of a mind mend to get right

Strings can make a massive difference. I use Tomastik Infeld on my semi Acoustic/electric hybrids..
Not the cheapest string but they do last at least three times longer than ordinary phos bronze strings.
My last build has a set of Tomastik George Benson Jazzies, but at $60 a set that might cause heart palpations...

With the saddle, I should add you dont want it to be overly tight in the slot when using an undersaddle piezo.
There needs to be a bit of slack to ensure enough downward pressure on the piezo, otherwise you wont get the full effect.
Typically this would be the low E not having the same volume as the other bottom end strings.

Now for a pro tip :P
When working out the saddle slot position, I glue the bridge on then string up.
Before putting any tension on the strings I slide a brass bar the same thickness as the saddle and tune up to pitch.
Then it is a matter of moving the bar so as to get each string intonated, or as close as possible.
Mark the front face of the bars position onto the saddle.
Then, after de stringing, I place my premade routing jig over the bridge (essentially a chunk of MDF with the bridge shape cut out) then grab the trusty Dremel with router attachment and set it up with a guide fence so the bit will cut the slot in the correct position.

This should give you a fairly close intonation, which can be adjusted by compensating the saddle where the strings sit. (I will dig out a compensated saddle tomorrow and take a pic)

Finally, I have yet to come across an acoustic guitar with perfect intonation.... very close, but never perfect.

[Ghaynas]

I get like that sometimes, but i find my muddling tends to make the situation worse. I have finally, after years, managed to stop myself from frustrated tinkering and just walk away from such issues until I am in the right head space to look at them properly.

I'm still a newbie in the world of guitar building, but by what I have already learned I think that's the best attitude, relax and taking it easy, if you give yourself time to think things twice, you always find an apropiate solution for each problem.

[robin]

@DB,
Thanks for the input Phil.

I didn’t know that strings made that much of a difference. Being a real cheapskate I never change my strings as often as I should.

I would guess that I have tensioned and loosened the D’Addarios more than a dozen times whilst cutting the nut and shaping the saddle. It always takes me quite a few goes to get the nut right and as it was my first attempt at making a compensated bone saddle a lot of trial and error was involved.


I can remember that I was pretty chuffed when I tensioned up the strings for the first time on the un-compensated saddle as the e and D strings were pretty spot on, intonation wise. Seeing as I’m using standard electric strings (with 3 unwound strings) the e and D are the shortest and need the least compensation. Now even these strings cannot be intonated properly and I just assumed that I had screwed up somewhere.

I will definitely put on a new set of strings before I do anything else and see if that makes a difference. You might have just saved me a load of heart-ache.


Thanks Phil, Simon and everybody else for all the help and encouragement.

Cheers guys
rob

[dingobass]

For a first attempt, I would be more than happy with the results...
It is not the end of this story yet. Even if you do end up having to re do the bridge you have learned a lot! and next time my bet is you will nail it

[robin]

Thanks Phil. You have more confidence in my ability than I do myself.

I will be a bit busy for most of this week helping a mate so I doubt that I will have much time to spend on the guitar, but I'm not giving up just yet.

Thanks for the encouragement mate
rob