Official Luthiers Forum!

Where is that edit button when I REALLY need it.
Please forgive me. I agree it was uncalled for and I don't know where that came from. Won't happen again. I already PM'd Hesh with an apology.

Understood and I extend my appolagy for jumping in.

Barry thanks buddy apology accepted and thanks for PMing me too.  BTW I understand your frustration and greatly appreciated that you PMed me.

Michael thanks for being a great guy!

When Lance recently received the FOLK guitar that a lot of you very fine OLFers had contributed greatly to in his appreciation post there was also a wish and request.  That wish and request was for peace on the OLF going forward. 

I read what Lance wrote, considered it, thought about my own hot-headed nature, and decided that the best thing that each and every one of us can contribute to this forum is to just let things that upset us go in the future.  It's not worth it.

So this is resolved and need not go one post further unless of course Barry or Michael want to say something too.

Thanks again Barry and Michael!

keep in mind this is just my opinion, I would use something that can be shaped and sanded to the required thickness while maintaining a good flat profile, that is as close to saddle grade material as possible. Micarta I think would be a good choice.

That said my latter comments were not directly related to your post as I was responding to the idea of a shimmed saddle being wise for a new build or repair being delivered to a client or for constant use.

I did understand that in your case it was for experimental purpose.

How did this get here? This was a reply to a PM? Oh well

I don't even particularly agree with the whole "energy transfer down through the saddle and into the guitar" theory."   That's how it works for UST pickups, to be sure, but I don't think acoustic guitars work that way. The string rests on the saddle, but shakes the whole bridge which transmits the vibration into the top.   I've never heard a difference with shims as hard as the bridge wood or the saddle itself.   Softer or with higher damping could directly affect the string vibration itself, much like a shock absorber damps suspension vibration in a car.

But I've even inlaid sections of spruce or cedar into the bottom of saddles under the high E and B strings to get smoother voicing into a UST...it works, by the way...and I didn't hear a difference acoustically.

I don't even particularly agree with the whole "energy transfer down through the saddle and into the guitar" theory."   That's how it works for UST pickups, to be sure, but I don't think acoustic guitars work that way.

Totally agree. With a well fitted saddle, the force vectors on the plucked strings wants to rock the saddle way more than they want to move it straight up and down. Good contact on the sides of the saddle is way more important than the bottom of the saddle. If a saddle can rock at all in it's slot, you lose a lot of energy.

The vectors get more horizontal with tighter and taller saddles, more vertical with looser and shorter saddles.

 

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

This is a can of worms for sure. I agree with Rick. But....

Last summer, just before the ASIA meeting where I was giving my string talk, I did some experiments with saddle material. I made pairs of saddles, for a steel string and a classical guitar, out of bone and HDPE. Then I swapped them out, played and listened to them both, and did some measurements. There were differences in the way the two guitars sounded with the different saddle materials, as far as I could tell, although they were less than I would have expected. However, I couldn't measure _any_ consistent changes. Either I wasn't measuring the right things, or I was hearing what I expected to hear. Which do you think was more likely?

I will say that the twice-per-cycle tension change signal on flat top guitars offers a good reason to make sure the saddle fits in the slot well without tipping.

[QUOTE=Alan Carruth] There were differences in the way the two guitars sounded with the different saddle materials, as far as I could tell, although they were less than I would have expected. However, I couldn't measure _any_ consistent changes. [/QUOTE]

Tell me it aint so Joe Tell me it aint so.

I all the years I have been religiously archiving darn near every word Alan has had to say about darn near anything; I believe this is the first time I have ever read of something he could not measure. If Alan can't it can't be done

Al, the sonic difference you heard could very well be the direct influence of the saddle material damping the string differently for each material.

For another way to hear this kind of thing, try switching the saddles on a Gibson Tunamatic bridge from metal to the plastic style.   Major difference...into humbuckers that have suck frequency response. You're not hearing any effects of "sound transference" as the pickups are string sensitive, not body sensitive.

This is another example of how acoustic oriented players and luthiers can learn from their more electric cousins.

BTW, some of the earliest work I did for Phil Lesh and Jack Casady in 1970 and '71 had to do with making bass bridge saddles out of different materials like rosewood, ivory, brass, etc. to hear what happens to the string when the saddle is changed. Jack's Alembic # 1 had a bridge I made with four sets of saddles that he could switch out.

I found I could sand bone saddle blanks down to very thin strips with the drill press disk sander.  You can CA these to the bottom of nuts and saddles as virtually invisible shims. 
Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I can certainly understand arguments that shims may effect sound in theory - I can't say that I've ever heard a difference in the hundreds of shims I've put under saddles though.

The bigger factor I think is the psychology. If I'm making a new bone saddle for a customer, I won't put a shim in it because I don't think it's a mark of good craftsmanship (there are exceptions where it may be an intentional factor, but different story).

If I'm doing a setup with an existing saddle however, it seems most of the work is in convincing the customer that the shim isn't going to make their D-16 sound any different. Of course, if they feel uneasy with it, I'd be glad to charge them for a new saddle, but usually against my recommendation. Whether it makes any difference or not, the customer will leave with greater peace of mind knowing that the shim is rosewood, ebony, or bone, rather than plastic.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

David, you just hit on one of the biggest factors in guitar repair...psychology.   Thanks!  &nb sp;

This could be a whole thread unto itself.   Psycho-lutherie...

I'd vote for a psycho-lutherie section on the new forum!

But a psycho-luthier section might get more posts....

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

Good thought Rick.The Tasmanian Psycho Luthier.I couldn`t resist having a bit of fun.
               James W B

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

The Tasmanian devil made me do it.

BTW, they really are amazing beasts, but there's a cancer-like illness raging among the population that causes terrible tumors on their faces and eventually interferes with their ability to eat.   Bob MacMillan...now on board here...says it may be due to the animal poisoning program that Gunns, the big timber slashers, have initiated.   The seed acres and acres of newly planted plantation blue gum eucalyptus with poisoned carrots to kill the wildlife so the critters won't nibble on the tree shoots...

Hmmmmm.... a shim under the saddle of a new guitar is poor workmanship ????

When I know that it is going to need to be removed in a month or two?

When all of the arguments against shims are based solely on the theoretical presumption that a shim "should" degrade the sound.

When none of the experienced ears here have said that they can hear any difference?

When I know that if I don't put in the shim, my customer is going to have to take the time to take the guitar in to a repair shop and pay to have the saddle  shortened by someone who may or may not do it properly?

When my costumers routinely thank me for putting the shim under there and are impressed not only with my understanding of how my guitars change over time but my thoughtfulness in making the correction easy for them ?

Hmmmmm..... maybe I just don't understand what good workmanship is.


Also for those who are convinced that a perfect fit between the bottom of the saddle and the bridge is essential for "sound transmission", a close look at an adjustable archtop guitar bridge might be very illuminating. There is pretty much nothing but air under the saddle. The only connection is through two tiny metal rods way out at the ends of the saddle.  And if you think that might be why archtops sound the way they do, make a piece of wood to fit the gap and lower the saddle onto it so that there is solid wood contact. See if it changes the sound in any appreciable way.

Mark

Oh, come on now, Mark.   A voice of reason?   :-)

I like your approach on the shim thing for new guitars. It doesn't apply to mine with the tilting neck, but I may just try that on our ukes where we always see the action rise, mainly from the instruments coming out of being built under low humidity and then coming out to our shipping department where the humidity is ambient and a bit higher.

 Rick

I agree that it is the slight rise in humidity that make the action rise on my guitars. I build at 40-45% and most people's homes average higher than that. The shim I put in is only .020", but taking it out is usually just the right amount to counteract the top doming up a bit in the higher humidity.

The only guitar I have shipped recently that didn't seem to need the shim removed went to a rather dry part of Colorado.

Mark

Mark, your method makes perfect sense to me, and perhaps I mis-spoke by saying a shim is a sign of poor workmanship. I indeed include a variety of shims with saddles on occasion, as a less expensive option of summer/winter saddles on request.

When I'm making a new bone saddle for a customer's guitar though, I see use of a shim as a sign of poor craftsmanship unless it is put there intentionally, or by design. If I put it there simply because I goofed and went too low, I think it can rightfully be perceived by the paying customer as a sign of poor workmanship. Though there is not tangible difference, the difference is real to both myself and the customer for some strange reason.

Perhaps everyone has their own definition of good workmanship - my underlying rule is intention. I like every line, angle, curve, element of design, to be intentional. If anything is there just because that's what happened, a hard line got softened by careless sanding, or a saddle got shimmed because it was sanded too low, I consider it a sign of poor craftsmanship.

Call me a bit silly, but in my mind if a shim is part of the intentional design, in is excellent craftsmanship. If it's there because of a mistake, it's bad craftsmanship. How do I tell the difference? Most times I probably can't, unless the builder included it in a flyer or something. Does it make any real difference? no.

But this a a bunch of unrelated philosophical crap that's a bit off-topic. When I said, "(there are exceptions where it may be an intentional factor, but different story)", this is the different story I was referring to.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

David, you mean you don't like those book matches, wadded up sections of business cards, and toothpicks that I've seen?   Jeeesh, what a grouch!

[QUOTE=Rick Turner] Jeeesh, what a grouch![/QUOTE]

What do you expect? I spent most of day working on banjos and a bass fiddle - think I'm gonna be nice to anyone after that.....

Maybe I should start listing what I've worked on each day. If you see words like Ovation, or banjo-mandolin, it may not be a good day to talk to me.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Working on bass fiddles requires charging rent for the parking space they take up.   Sometime you have to have them towed away, too...

David

I totally agree with you on the "intension" thing. Craftsmanship is all about intension. It's about working with materials and making the finished product match up with what we intended it to be.

Whether or not a shim is good or bad workmanship totally depends on whether or not it got there by design or by mistake, regardless of whether or not there is any utility in it being there.

Good point.... I'm glad you brought it up.
Mark

By the way, Mark (and off-topic), thanks again for the differential thread truss rod design.   Brilliant, really good stuff. Did you patent that?   You know what...I may start making some specific to my some of my instruments where the Allied ones aren't quite right.   If I do, I'll just send you a check or a bottle of wine or whatever every now and then.   What do you like? Is that OK?