OldePhart
Well-known member
So...For at least two years I've been saying that I needed to build up a double-thickness bridge saddle for my KoAloha longneck soprano so I could get the intonation on the C string closer to what it should be.
Today I went to Guitar Center (yuck) and bought a couple of bone acoustic saddle blanks. It took the better part of three hours but I cut and sanded and ground and glued and cut and sanded some more until I had a blank with a little "bump" on the top behind the E and C strings. Then another two hours or so of sanding and testing and sanding and testing and I finally have a bridge saddle that intonates tolerably well.
Just FYI - if one was careful one could get enough of the "bumps" out of one saddle blank to make six compensated saddles (of course six other blanks are needed to glue the bumps to).
But...the uke is a lot brighter now. I really wasn't expecting that because the old saddle was pretty hard (Tusq, or Corian, I think). It doesn't sound bad at all - but it's quite definitely brighter. I would say that now it sounds with the Alohi strings that are on it about as bright as it did with the fluorocarbon strings that came on it...maybe even a little brighter than that.
One other thing I learned about bone today - it's not much fun to file, grind, sand, or cut. I never would have got through this project without liberal use of the Dremel tool! (And...we won't talk about what my office smells like now...)
John
Today I went to Guitar Center (yuck) and bought a couple of bone acoustic saddle blanks. It took the better part of three hours but I cut and sanded and ground and glued and cut and sanded some more until I had a blank with a little "bump" on the top behind the E and C strings. Then another two hours or so of sanding and testing and sanding and testing and I finally have a bridge saddle that intonates tolerably well.
Just FYI - if one was careful one could get enough of the "bumps" out of one saddle blank to make six compensated saddles (of course six other blanks are needed to glue the bumps to).
But...the uke is a lot brighter now. I really wasn't expecting that because the old saddle was pretty hard (Tusq, or Corian, I think). It doesn't sound bad at all - but it's quite definitely brighter. I would say that now it sounds with the Alohi strings that are on it about as bright as it did with the fluorocarbon strings that came on it...maybe even a little brighter than that.
One other thing I learned about bone today - it's not much fun to file, grind, sand, or cut. I never would have got through this project without liberal use of the Dremel tool! (And...we won't talk about what my office smells like now...)
John