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Bone bridge saddle making for acoustic guitars
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When it comes to making a bespoke bone saddle for an acoustic guitar there are lots of factors that are all really important.
I make my saddles from a rectangular blanks especially for your guitar's bridge which means that it's 100% tailor made to be spot-on for the best playability, sound, looks and performance.
If you don't have a bone saddle in your acoustic guitar you are missing out big time, it really is my favourite tonal upgrade for acoustics
Bone is an awesome material, although it's a traditional material used in guitar making it has many advantages.
- Amazing sound - When properly made it brings out the sustain and tone of your guitar like you wouldn't believe
- Tough but not too tough - Brittle bone has just the right amount of give in it to not slice through the strings and it makes it easy to shape
- Brilliant colour - My bleached bone blanks are a nice white with a small amount of natural speckling on. I also stock unbleached bone as used on some guitars
Advantages of having a bespoke made saddle:
A perfect fit for your saddle slot
Some guitars have a saddle in that's too thin. Not only is that terrible for string-to-soundboard transfer but they can lean and give a poor string contact point resulting in a fuzzy tone. I make mine to be snug so that theres just the right amount of pressure holding it in
Made with the correct radius
Your guitar's fingerboard (unless it's a classical guitar) has a curvature and the saddle has to mirror this radius perfectly so that the strings may be held at the right height from E to e string.
Bridge height optimised for your guitar's setup
Although the guitar's string height is dependant on other factors too, one of my new bridge saddles with be set perfectly for your playing style
Great for undersaddle pickups
For those who have Piezo transducers hiding under their bridges, bone is great for those too. It carries all the same tonal advantages straight to the pickup itself. String to string balance is carefully monitored too so that when plugged in, each string has the same output volume as the next.
>Read about acoustic pickup installation
Intonation
Although many acoustic guitars are designed with an offset bridge saddle angle, the intonation pattern needs to be fine tuned for optimum intonation string to string. My bone saddles are intonation compensated with the use of a "B-Bump" on the B string. Also available in a straight intonation pattern if required
>Buy a bone saddle now >Back to Guitar Upgrades
How they're made - Making a bone saddle from scratch
Here's how I make a new bone saddle from a bone blank - this one's for a 12 string acoustic
A saddle blank is selected from my stock and the thickness measured, I'm looking for one that will fit snugly into the rosewood saddle slot of the guitar's bridge
The saddle blank is sanded to the perfect thickness and then the ends are trimmed and rounded so that they fit inside the saddle slot perfectly
- Too tight and the saddle will be tough to get out plus will not work well with the under saddle transducer pickup that will be used
- Too Loose and the saddle will lean forward when strung up and will cause a poor string contact point
The saddle is now rough sanded to the correct radius. The curve in this fingerboard is 14" so it's important for the bridge saddle to match it
Here's the saddle with the correct radius sanded onto it. Of course it's way too high at the moment, the top also need some attention
This is the intonation compensation pattern needed for each independent string to play in tune. This curve affects the intonation of each string which is responsible for the string playing in tune as you fret higher notes. The 12-string version is extra complex whn compared to the 6 string version.
Not how the unison strings B-B ad E-E share the exact same position?
Here's how it looks in real life - fiddly to make for sure
The new saddle is fitted into the bridge slot, the saddle height just needs to be set now
Here's the saddle all strung up!
During the process of setting the saddle height you have to de-string the guitar a few times and yes, I broke the damn G string again!
>Buy a bone saddle now >Back to Guitar Upgrades
