Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello all,
I was reading a book the other day and it described how to figure out the neck pocket depth for hardtail or tele style bridges. Again these are for bridges that are not too tall and do not require a neck angle...example of bridges this would not work for is TOM type of bridges because the neck would be really high off of the body of the guitar.

1. set saddles to their lowest position
2. measure the saddle heights from the top of the saddle to the top of the guitar body....in the case of a tele bridge you would include the bridge plate thickness as well.
3. measure the total neck thickness including fret height. Do this in the center of the neck cuz that is the thickest part.
4. subtract these two measurements and that is the neck pocket depth.

This means that at the lowest setting on the saddles the strings will be just resting on the fret tops and all action adjustments are up form there.

Was just making sure I got the steps correct.

I was also thinking you could take this concept furthur......take your planned action at the 12th fret (bottom of the string to the top of the fret distance) and multiply it by 2 and that should be the height of the saddle at the bridge to achieve this action. You can move the saddle to this height to check if the adjustment screws are in a good place....that is to say they are not sticking up too much and are uncomfortable to play. This would allow you to check different bridges to make sure they will play ok before installation. If the screws are too high then you can raise the neck pocket and calculate the new saddle height to get it where you want.

I was going to do this with a tele bridge I bought to see how it came out.

Please check me here and make sure this is a sane process.

Thanks for the info
Matthew

Bump

seems to me you're thinking too much. measure the low/mid saddle height and set your neck to to match. fingerboard + a couple of mm is the norm for me. the best answer in my view is to make wooden bridges to fit the finished guitar and do away with ugly metal bridges altogether.