Bridge placement

Hello all. I set my bridge on my tenor uke build. It appears that my bridge placement is off (too long by 1/16) over the 17 3/32" that it is suposed to be. How bad will this be? Will I notice the difference? should I remove and try to reset the bridge?

Thanks for your help,

Greg

Is that A) compensated distance plus 1/16" or B) double the nut to 12th fret distance plus 1/16"?

1/8" saddle or 3/32"?

Not enough info yet...

If A, you may have a problem. If B you're likely close enough and/or you can comp the saddle.

Rick, The distance from the nut to 12th fret is 8 1/2". The distance from the 12th fret to the front of the saddle is 8 11/16". my saddle is 1/8" wide. Man I think I need bifocals now....Hehe.

nothing else

Your comments are very appreciated

Yeah, you need to 1) move the bridge, or 2) put on a bigger bridge if there's a "footprint" problem, or 3) move the saddle slot. You're about 1/8"+ south of where you need to be.

Thanks Rick. The bridge is actually not glued on yet. I am following the process from the Hana Lima build book. I had secured the bridge with two sided tape to drill the outer string holes and to use brads for alignment. I will however have to work the finish on the soundboard. I had a piece of masking tape on the soundboard where my bridge placement was supposed to be. I will now need to reposition the brige and add finish to cover the bare spot behind the bridge. I think I will have my local plastics company make me a couple jigs that are premeasured to the correct distances so I dont miss the measurements again. Thanks for your advise. Here are a few pics of the Uke so far.

I compensate only a couple of mm on a tenor scale. That's to the center of the saddle, not the leading edge.
That's a good looking uke you've built there. What kind of finish did you choose?
One suggestion for next time.....You might want to mask off only the top of the fret board so that the finish extends up the sides of the neck and includes the sides of the finger board.

Wow! Thanks Chuck. I still had a new rattle can of the Behlen stringed instrument lacquer I used on an electric guitar kit a few months ago. Although its not the best finishing product, it seemed to go on well for me without any problems. The soundboard is sinker redwood and the back and sides are Bubinga. Thanks for the advise on the fret board. How are your Ukes balanced? Mine is a spanish heel build. The neck is a bit heavier than the body. Is this normal or shoud I take a bit more off my necks?

Last weekend, I carried out an experiment to determine the exact position of the saddle for my newly built tenor ukulele.
The strings are D'Addario tenor, J71. I have no instruction manual or anything like that.
I use the side of my workbench as the "ukulele", on the left is one tuner hardware, then the nut (fixed), then 8.5 inch to the right is the "fret#12".
At 17" (my tenor uke scale length), I put a little empty can upside down (the "top") and a triangular section wood (as the floating bridge), at the right most side, one end of the string is attached there.
Then I string up one string at a time, tune it to pitch, then play the note at fret#12 (the only fret) and move the "floating bridge/saddle" until I got good intonation. I also make sure that the action at "fret#12" is 0.090 inch as that would be on the real instrument.
Then I wrote down the distance between fret#12 to the saddle, substract 8.5" from it and write down the number (compensation) on the envelope of this string. Here are what I got.
A and high G: ~ 1.5mm (I only measure one of them, not both as they are almost identical)
E: ~1mm
C: ~3mm
What this says is the center of the saddle has to be 1mm more than the scale length (from fret zero)
[CORRECTION: the edge of the saddle has to be ~ 0.5mm more than the scale length ]
My saddle is 3mm thick, so its center will be 2mm more than the scale length.
I will have room fine tune the saddle to meet the strings G / C and A compensation.
2mm is the exact number given to me by another member in this forum. I just double check with the strings I will use.

After the excercize described above, I love the floating bridge of my mandolins, so easy to get proper intonation.