Open strings out of tune with closed strings

Hello Botnet,

As a permanent fix, use a piece of metal paperclip (not the regular but a big one) cut with pliers to the exact neck width : it will remain in its place only with the pressure of the strings (of course, you can glue it as well).
I saved a cheap mahilele this way and the intonation is now OK.
regards,
Gilles
 
THIS THIS absolutely improved things. Yes the fretted strings were about 17 cents sharper than the open strings, and a matchstick made them correct.

What are the next steps to make a more permanent fix here?

I'm glad it worked for you. There are two approaches that can be taken here.

One is to remove the nut, file the end of the fretboard towards the frets and reinstall the nut. Its best to take this slowly and check progress often as you go.
Two is to make a shim out of bone to replace the matchstick but be more permanent if not completely permanent.

I suggest taking it to an experienced luthier. It's not that expensive a fix.
 
Last edited:
Just as a sanity check, here’s how far I had to put the matchstick. Does that look correct? It seems like quite a bit of fretboard will need to be filed away. when I compare my ukulele to the picture on the mele site, they look identical. Is it possible this model has a design defect?5C1B91CE-8AF8-4050-B501-8E08FC2C4D76.jpg
 
A matchstick is approximately 2 mm's? thick. That's quite a margin for your ukulele to be out of spec by and you certainly should not be filing any fretboard away. You need to take note of my earlier reply. There are theoretical measurements for these things. You need to measure the position of the nut in relation to the first fret and the position of the saddle in respect of the string length. You need to know the compensation factor and whether they have included it. Do that before messing around with the nut position. If the nut position is correct you can tweak compensation at the nut but these are usually very small adjustments. Take away the matchstick and fret the octave. What is it like and how far out is it? But the measurements with a known accurate ruler is required.
 
Last edited:
What Michael N. said. With an accurate ruler, measure from the nut to the exact point on the saddle where the strings break over it. Measure from the nut to the exact crown of the 12th fret. Measure from the nut to the exact crown of the 1st fret. Measurements need to be to a 32nd of an inch, or 1/2 mm. Come back and tell us what you found.
 
Just as a sanity check, here’s how far I had to put the matchstick. Does that look correct? It seems like quite a bit of fretboard will need to be filed away. when I compare my ukulele to the picture on the mele site, they look identical. Is it possible this model has a design defect?View attachment 106834

Having looked at the photo, that's a LOT of compensation and I don't recommend that you take that much off the fretboard.I suspect that the error is at both ends, the nut AND the saddle is out of place so now what you really need to do is measure the entire scale length of the instrument checking where the nut and saddle are placed in relation to the centre of the 12th fret.

What you need is a steel rule a little longer than the distance from the nut to the saddle or a decent tape measure will do.

TO be honest, thats not having the matchstick up against the nut which is what I recommended and now I'm struggling to believe that it would have been possible to have all the fretted notes in tune which is what you claimed to start with. You must have had a variable intonation error before that changed up the fretboard and my advice was specifically addressing there being an error between open strings and ALL fretted strings.

We can walk you through it but you need to respond to us. Its complicated.
 
Thanks all for the replies. I'll work on getting an accurate ruler and come back with all of these measurements. I recently moved to a new part of the world without a lot of access to these things, so I suspect it could be a few days.

I really appreciate the help and all the suggestions. Per Anthonyg's response, with the matchstick things did seem correct all the way up the fretboard, but I can verify that tonight with the tuner and see if things go sharp or flat.
 
That is some impressive problems solving in this thread. I always thought that Mele was a higher end Hawaii based brand and I would have considered a uke from them. But something like this is just not acceptable. Did you contact them and ask to replace the uke?
 
That is some impressive problems solving in this thread. I always thought that Mele was a higher end Hawaii based brand and I would have considered a uke from them. But something like this is just not acceptable. Did you contact them and ask to replace the uke?

I did contact them through the website and via email, as soon as I started this thread. No response yet. I also wasn’t able to reach them over phone so i’m not sure what’s happening.
 
I hope I did this right. basically the ruler was pressed square against the nut for the measurements.




View attachment 106999
~348.5 mm



View attachment 106998
~173mm




View attachment 107000
~20.5mm

This looks to be correct to me and I can't see where there would be a 17 cent sharp error. Maybe make some minor adjustments at the saddle and some minor adjustments at the nut but not to correct a 17 cent error so I'm puzzled. This is a Soprano so maybe try some new Soprano strings.

Using a tuner can you give us an idea of how far out it is every few frets?
 
I hope I did this right.



View attachment 107000
~20.5mm

Now you say 20.5 mm but my eye says its a fraction less than 20mm.

I ran the numbers through the Stewart MacDonald fret calculator,

https://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator

I assumed a nominal scale length of 346mm which is the 173mmm from nut to centre fret x 2 and 12 frets and the calculator puts the 1st fret at 19.419mm. This looks right to my eye unless there is paralax error in the photograph.

If it really is at 20.5mm you could shim or file it 1mm closer and you could file the saddle contact points back a little but this isn't enough to correct a 17 cent sharp error.
 
This looks to be correct to me and I can't see where there would be a 17 cent sharp error. Maybe make some minor adjustments at the saddle and some minor adjustments at the nut but not to correct a 17 cent error so I'm puzzled. This is a Soprano so maybe try some new Soprano strings.

Using a tuner can you give us an idea of how far out it is every few frets?

I switched out the strings maybe one week ago, with Aquila carbonblack "low g" soprano strings.

Here's the cents sharp data for each string with the matchstick removed; the tuner i'm using is Tunable for iphone:

Fret A string E string C string G string
1 9.5 19.5 12.4 25
2 15.7 25.4 17.2 29.5
3 16.4 20.9 15.5 23.4
4 14.9 18.8 15.7 19.5
5 10.9 10.1 15.1 19.5
6 14.1 15.1 13.7 18.6
7 12.2 16.3 12.6 18
8 12.8 12.3 11.6 21.7
9 14.7 17.5 15.2 17.5
10 13.9 10.8 11.1 12.1
11 6.5 19.5 9.6 4
12 1.5 0.9 5 1

centsSharp.jpg

With the matchstick in place, the fretted strings are within 5 cents of the open ones.


Lastly, a huge thanks again for helping me diagnose this.
 
Going by that data the nut placement is the principle culprit but I wouldn't want to move it as radically as you previously pictured. When I use the matchstick fix which I sometimes do I always have it up against the inside of the nut. Having it positioned so far away from the nut is what set off the alarm bells.

How good or bad is the intonation if the matchstick is up against the inside of the nut?
 
There is something wrong here. All the measurements are what they should be. I agree with anthonyg, the first fret shows about 19.5mm, not 20.5. The bridge is reasonably compensated at +2.5mm. There is no way that these strings should be going sharp to the degree you state. The last link in the chain is the tuner. It could be the Tunable app, but it could be in the iPhone its self. Try to get a different tuner to try. How does it sound to your ears? If it is this far off you should hear it big time.
 
Yep. Ditch the tuner unless it actually does sound out. If you want to mess around with nut intonation you shouldn't need to use anything thicker than 1 mm (probably less) and it should be right up against the nut. If fret and saddle position are accurately placed (which they appear to be) nut compensation should be very subtle and the amount should differ from string to string. It's a tiny difference. Don't go filing anything off that fretboard, it isn't necessary.
Try a new set of strings, just plain nylon.
 
Top Bottom