The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
  1. #1

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    Hey!

    I discovered a problem with my bridge. Classical guitar.
    The bone saddle wont touch the bottom of the groove entirely. The bass string part.
    So, decided to try and fix it myself.
    I guess the easiest way would be to cover the bottom of the groove with graphite. Then put the saddle back in and see where it stays clean.. and sand off the parts that get "marked" by the graphite.

    Now the interesting question. I had an idea that after fixing the bone, I'd may leave the graphite in there. And perhaps add even more.
    There reason - in time, it should become super tight and solid. And could be even good for the tone that way - "bridging" the little imperfections between saddle and bridge groove.
    The other hand - graphite is super slippery also. And that could work completely wrong way in this application.

    So, your thoughts?

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  3. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by emanresu
    Hey!

    I discovered a problem with my bridge. Classical guitar.
    The bone saddle wont touch the bottom of the groove entirely. The bass string part.
    So, decided to try and fix it myself.
    I guess the easiest way would be to cover the bottom of the groove with graphite. Then put the saddle back in and see where it stays clean.. and sand off the parts that get "marked" by the graphite.

    Now the interesting question. I had an idea that after fixing the bone, I'd may leave the graphite in there. And perhaps add even more.
    There reason - in time, it should become super tight and solid. And could be even good for the tone that way - "bridging" the little imperfections between saddle and bridge groove.
    The other hand - graphite is super slippery also. And that could work completely wrong way in this application.

    So, your thoughts?
    Hi, E,
    There's no good reason to put graphite on the bone insert in your bridge. The improper fit is either a quality control issue during the build or excessive humidity in your case/guitar. So, buy a sheet of 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper and use it DRY to sand the face and back of the insert on a level surface. The tolerance cannot be very high and after a few minutes you should have a perfect fit. Is the material bone or plastic? Once you get the proper sizing, you might want to consider buying a bone insert for a better sound. I hope this helps.
    Play live . . . Marinero

  4. #3
    Thanks.

    If I carefully check the bone piece, its slightly curved and also it has very slight angle.. my english is too bad for describing this.
    But when checking the bottom of the groove, it looks like polished everywhere except close to the bass strings. It seems, that the bone has a significant gap there.
    Also, though the groove looks "polished" but I guess thanks to the suspicious angle of the bottom of the bone, there is "sharper" marking on the groove on one side.
    That makes me think that the bone sits on the edge instead staying flat on its bottom.

    The quality control was our eyes after crafting a new saddle while drinking wine. It took about 30 minutes to carve this out. Been playing with it for many years
    but was always suspicious - the guitar sounded like a miracle once. I even thought something had happened to it before I finally had money to buy it.
    Anyway. I'll report back how it goes

  5. #4

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    Hi, E,
    Go to: Stewmac.com
    Play live . . .Marinero

  6. #5
    Ok. thats the end of it for now.
    I rubbed some graphite on the bottom of the groove and tried to slide the saddle. But it felt stuck.
    So, did some sanding carefully here and there and it got loose to jiggle 0.2mm along the groove.
    The graphite marks showed that the saddle didnt touch the bottom for 2cm even. Thats a bit much for sure.
    So, did some sanding until the graphite marks started to appear on the bass side too.
    Couldn't go much adventurous because its my only saddle here and was afraid to ruin it before getting some fresh pieces.

    Anyway. The guitar sounds fresh again. So much better.
    Why did I wait for 7 years with this?