Topic: Saddles

[Richard]

Thought I'd run this by you and get a collective opinion.

First should I say that I have no problems about doing the work - I need to renew the saddle on the National Rosita I recently aquired as at present it doesn't so much have slots, for the strings, as troughs - the Rosita is a wood body single cone with biscuit bridge. When I replaced a similarly worn saddle on the Dobro it improved that guitar by at least 40 million percent.

It seem that there are two schools of thought on saddle design and as the attached rough sketch shows.

Fig 1 is the 'traditional' National metal body format and as I understand recommended by Bob Brozman.

Fig 2 is the Dobro version which would seem to do much the same as the National in that the the string break point is in the same place at the rear face.

I don't know what saddle the guitar had originally, what is has now is a very rounded version of Fig 2 which does nothingh to enhance the sound.

So, other than tradition, is there actually anything to choose between the two soundwise and what effect would an ebony tipped saddle have?

All (polite) suggestions welcome

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[Richard]

Oh bugger the attached graphic is ENORMOUS

[Slack]

Richard, you want to file slots for wound strings that are about half the depth of the string, for steel strings the entire depth.  The slots should have a round bottom and be slightly (few thousands) larger than the string slot.  The slots should angle towards the back of the guitar, to fully support the string  - you don't want the string sitting on a point as your illustration shows, because it will wear easily and eventually lower the string - from tuning over time.

I'd stick with maple, which is called  'Plane' (I believe) in the UK.

cheers,
slack

[Richard]

Thanks for your input and I agree about the slots etc,

But, whilst I tend to agree on the saddle supporting the string I wonder why it is then that the 'accepted' ways of doing the job (other than altering the string length) are the opposite to what seems logical?

[Ignatznochops]

Slack,

What they call "plane" in England is what we call sycamore, or buttonwood in the U.S. (genus Platanus), which would be a bad choice for this application . I think that maple (genus Acer) is called just that in England.

Joe

[Slack]

Thanks Joe,

I stand corrected!