Saddle Shimming

If you got a uke with 3/32 of an inch 3 layer plastic shim under the saddle would you be pissed or is that normal?

I NEVER shim a saddle, just replace. But one of the uke companies I deal sent me a uke with abnormally high action, so I went to set it up and saw the saddle shimmed with 3 layers of a tortiose shell pick guard material cut to 3 different lengths with the plastic scratch protection cover still on it. I dont know whether to be aggrivated or if that is just normal.

Thanks guys! I just want to make sure it is not just me being picky. Now to see if I have another saddle to replace this with.

SERIOUSLY!?!?! I'd photograph the heck out of it & report it to their "QA" person or at least your retail rep - thats crazy! If a customer bought that from you like that, you'd be the one looking like a loser.

Hello Mim

You're not picky. I take it that these are brand-new factory-made instruments that you ordered for sale to your customers. A significant percentage of customers will be unhappy, and you must be pickier than them to be a good advocate for customers. You have all the rights to be picky.

How expensive is the ukulele in question? If it is a $50 top ukulele, I would keep it as a wall display. $100 and above, I'd send it back (unfortunately, probably the company will just send it to another store, ugh. Maybe it's better if you set it up carefully and then sell it (with special complaints sent to your sale rep)

What strikes me is why the ukulele came with such an excessive amount of shimming. A facotry *usually* has a whole bunch of saddles with varying heights. Did this ukulele require an unordinary height of saddle? If so, why? The first suspect is the wrong neck set angle. You mentioned a high action out of box. Again why? Maybe somebody didn't even bother (most likely), or maybe there is something seriously wrong with the ukulele (a loose fret somewhere)?

Anyway, you're not picky and as a possible buyer, I appreciate your attention!

Happy Pickin
Chief

My daughter bought a Fender guitar a few years ago and the nut popped off. The music store found a shim glued under it and they were angry (they fixed it for free but said they would lodge a complaint with Fender). It was a cheap guitar and I am impressed that they spent so much time with us, they could not have made a large profit on the original sale.

Aloha MiM,
It should have been sold as a second....as I would consider it.... the manfacturer passed it off to you....and you sure wouldn't wan't to pass it off to your customers...I would call them ask for
credit on it...do they give you extra ukes in a batch just in case a couple are bad...or you buy in small quanities...Have you tried to play the uke without the shims..and if yes...encouuntered any
problems. jst wondering..Good Luck, MM Stan

Any break in the transmission of vibrations from the strings to the top result in some small (or sometimes large) degradation of sound. Imagine the sound waves making the transition between all of those layers of material. You would inevitably get some reflection and some loss, which you might expect to slightly muffle or muddy the signal.

Whether that's normal depends on the manufacturer. If it's a quality line of uke, I think you'd be right to be be pissed. A picky or well informed end-purchaser may well send something like this back to the seller, and no reseller needs that sort of aggravation.

A solid wood shim like veneer would be ok in my opinion, but plastic is no good at all, especially if the saddle material is bone, horn or tusq. The plastic uncouples the saddle from the body. A wood shim is not as good as no shim but I have never noticed a loss in volume or frequency response when you need to raise the saddle height. At a minimum I use maple for it's hardness.

On a brand new uke, I'd be pissed with what you described.

TWC

well if the action was abnormally high, why not just take the shims out? I wonder if it will buzz ....

3/32 is about where you want to be at the 12th on a soprano or concert. Maybe a tad higher for tenor. So to get it to 3/32 Mim is saying they shimmed the snot out of it with plastic instead of putting in a higher saddle. At least that is how I read it.

Huna said:

well if the action was abnormally high, why not just take the shims out? I wonder if it will buzz ....

Click to expand...

I'd never use plastic as a shim. Hardwood veneers no worries, but I'd never just have them loose in there either. Always glued to the bottom of the bone with CA. And if for instance your bridge is Indian Rosewood, a Rosewood veneer glued to the bottom of your saddle won't make a lick of difference to the tone of the instrument.

I was shown that trick by a repair guru who used it to even out the response on under saddle pickups. The wood shim glued to the bottom of the saddle will conform just that very tiny bit if the bottom of the saddle slot and the saddle itself aren't mating up perfectly. Quick fix to save the customer a bit of $$$ instead of routing the saddle slot and making a new saddle to suit.

If the action was unusually high, I'm left wondering why they were in there in the first place?

Thanks guys! Everything you said confirmed my suspicions. I knew this was going against everything I have been taught. And if a customer found these shims I would be MORTIFIED!!! So I am greatful I caught them, but now have 20 more ukes I need to take apart to make sure this was not dont to them. Not fun!

Ok the history of my history with this company. Thus the stuff leading to this incident!

I will NOT sell a buzzy uke. I did it twice in my history on accident and paid to have them shipped back to me. Which is no fun and I lost $. That being said, I am still a "baby dealer" in the grand scheme of things and am just getting comfortable having a large stock. Part of that is me being more comfortable in my set-up skills and my leveling skills, etc. I am sjst now getting comfy doing fret leveling on high end ukes, so before if I had a high end that buzzed I would send it back. This particular company sent me 6 ukes that list at $420 ish and I sell them for around $350. ALL had a buzz. Their response "We will take them back and replace them but you seem to be the only person having this problem. No one else is coplaining". It is always my fault it seems. 2 of these ukes, by the way, had cracks in them. So, I send them back with them singing the tune that I am the only person that has problems. I said, "Before you send the next batch will you PLEASE quality control them. I do not want to have to deal with buzzy ukes at this price point". Well... apparently they QCed it... by shimming this saddle in a rediculous manner to make it not buzz. So, I get this uke out for set up. Notice the action is insanely high. Then find the shims. So I take them out and it is at about 2.5/32nds at the 12th fret. And buzzy. Sigh...

So I am working on it, and I think I have a saddle I can replace it with.

BUT... I wanted to confirm with you guys here. Because I know the first thing they are going to tell me when I call is, "I can't imagine why you are having this problem. This is standard luthier practice to shim saddles like that. You are the only one with this issue. You just must have happened to get a bad one". This is the story EVERY time! And I seriously just worked for over 2 hours on one of their ukes. It plays like butter now. But it seems to be this type of uke that is made in a different factory than the others. When they are right they are great... but they are right maybe 33% of the time. Too much work for not a lot of $!

Thanks a bunch guys! SERIOUSLY!!! I just needed some confirmation so when I call tomorrow they can not act like I am crazy! I may even direct them to this thread if I need to. You will probably see me around here a lot more now. I just have teenie questions every now and then and I like to make sure the practices I have learned are the consensus amoung yall! Thanks... SO MUCH!

darn, I just lost a long, intelligent and well thought out reply.

The short answer is, the end user is king. If you think that an end user will be concerned about the product, then stand your ground. Buzzing ukes and ukes that have been 'fixed' with several layers of plastic shims would not be acceptable to end users as far as I am concerned.

Back your own judgement on this. Regardless of how big this brand is, if their goods don't meet your standards, demand better, or don't sell them.

Don't matter what business you're in. When it comes to having a complaint about a suppliers product it's the first time they've ever heard of any issues. And really it's just you that must be the problem. Yah...been there and done that too many times to count.

Your not crazy.

PM sent.. FWIW

I'm pretty dead set against saddle shims. I expect if it was done with the same type of wood and very precisely like Allen mentioned it would be cool... otherwise, uhuh, no shims, especially on a new uke lol.