Saddle for Tiny Tangi Uke

Guys,
A year or two ago I bought 2-3 of these while supplies where limited. Since then I sold all but 1. One that had a broken bridge and the saddle was lost. I gave it to my mom as a "Shadow box" item. Recently I decided to take it back and try my hand at fixing it. Luckily the piece of the bridge was with the uke. So I used some gorrilla wood glue and its in place just fine now. My problem is the saddle. Im sure a normal sop saddle wont do. What would you guys do in this situation? I have some thin ebony wood that I could use but no real expierence with whats required in a saddle. I wanted to see how you guys would handle this? I have included pictures

Make a new saddle from your ebony and aim for a piston fit, where it fits in snugly but not too tight. If you have hand tools sand down to the size of the slot . I use HF digital calipers to measure length width and height. Sand from 80 - 220 on a vy flat surface , and check your work often.

Ernie has part of it covered.

You need the ebony, or bone or whatever to be a nice slip fit into the slot. Lot's of ways to go about getting that, but for many home handymen the best option is sometimes pretty low tech. A piece of sandpaper (say 180 - 240 grit) on a hard flat surface and you rub the saddle on it with as even a pressure as you can muster to take it down to dimension in width. Check often, because it's real easy to go too far in a blink of an eye and it's a sloppy fit.

Then you need to work out the hight that the new saddle needs to be. If you have something such as a 1/8" drill bit you can place it on the fret board against the 14th fret. Then place a straight edge ( a yard stick will suffice) so that it rests on the first fret, and on top of the 1/8" spacer (drill bit or whatever). Now measure the distance from the bottom of your saddle slot to the bottom edge of the straight edge. This will tell you how tall that saddle needs to be to get the action to an acceptable height.

If you did everything right you will end up with the bottom of the strings between 2.2mm and 2.5mm above the 12th fret.

DO NOT glue the saddle in the bridge. It's a wearing part that may need to be replaced down the track.

Let us know how you go.

Yes I agree, buy a bone saddle insert as near to the thickness of the bridge slot as possible, then cut and sand to fit.
The saddle is a very cheap part so the worst that can go wrong is that you have to start again with a new one.

Hi allen long time no hear on anzlf . I wanted to keep it simple for the DIY guy , so thanks for chiming in .Finally finished my first Falcate braced uke which design came from the may 2012 ANZLF forum . Here it is www.ateliertomistrings.com. Sorry to change subject on thread.