New Build XB-1

[andy_hamilton]

Hi Guys! got my first kit today the XB1
Most of the stuff looks straight forward apart from one thing
the saddle, ive looked through the guides and it doesn't seem to mention the fixed saddle

So, does this go on straight? and what distance should it be.
Hoping you guys can help, cheers

[FrankenWashie]

Hi Andy,

the fixed bridges, like the one you have, should be square to the board end.
You want to have the high e saddle set mid way in its adjustment and measure from the nut to the front of that saddle where the string exits that saddle.
That distance should be the scale length of the guitar (25.5 inches or 648mm I think on the XB-1).
The other saddles you will adjust back or forward depending on much you need to adjust them to get your intonation set.
i think this is all detailed in the build guide, page 8.
https://www.pitbullguitars.com/instruction-manual/

hope this helps, good luck with your build, just remember the critical mantras:

Sand, sand, sand, inspect, and then sand some more.
Measure Twice, Cut once.
The only silly question, is the one you had, that you didn’t ask, before you did something that went horribly horribly sideways.

[jugglindan]

Hi Andy, and welcome.

@FrankenWashie has good advice. The build diary and the collective wisdom of this forum are invaluable. They have saved my build several times already.

[Simon Barden]

You want to have the high e saddle set mid way in its adjustment and measure from the nut to the front of that saddle where the string exits that saddle.

I'm sorry, but you don't want to do that, that bit of the build guide is wrong. Set the high E saddle fairly far forwards, so there's only a bit of adjustment screw poking out from the threaded hole in the rear of the saddle into the centre hollow.

When you get to the intonation adjustment, the saddles will move backwards from the nominal scale length position, the low E more than the high E. If you set the saddles in the mid-position, you then have limited scope for moving the saddles back before the saddle springs are fully compressed and you can't move them back any more.

And measure the scale length from the fretboard face by the high E string slot to just behind the front edge of the high E saddle, the point where the string will leave the saddle. This is normally around 1mm back from the front edge because of the curce of the slot.

You really want to fit the neck and the two E tuners, then run string down to the bridge so that you can align the bridge centrally, with both bits of string equal distance from the edge of the board. Mark the position of teh sides of the bridge with pencil or tape, and then measure the scale length with the bridge in the central position.

[JimC]

And if you do aim for the middle you end up like this...

(Worse with the tele style bridge of course).
The thing is you ( or at least I) look at the bridge and think, logically enough, that you want to start with the saddle halfway through the range of adjustment. But actually the range we want to use is between full forward and halfway down the thread, so the target should be the middle of that range. Then on a correctly intonated guitar the top string will be towards the forward end of the general range, so you end up with the starting point Simon gives you above.

(But actually I got this one wrong for a completely different reason. Rather than position the bridge from first principles I simply copied the bridge position precisely from my Telecaster. All, well and good that would have been, were it not that I didn't spend enough time measuring up, and it turns out the scale length on the second hand neck I was using was just fractionally longer than standard. They looked the same when I just lined them up against each other and thought "yep that's standard", but...)

[andy_hamilton]

thanks for the assistance here guys, we are almost complete
here the next issue cant work out
when we plug into an amp (it works phew) but we get alot of static noise, ive followed the diagram and checked all the joints, the only thing i can see missing is it says on the diagram to send a wire to the bridge, i cant see how that would connect (no holes to feed to the bridge,

Also, when i put my finger on the jack or the switch it goes silent
frustrating this one

thanks in advance for any insights you may have

Andy