Official Luthiers Forum!

I got out my #1 the other day and even though I did it intentionally the strings are too far apart. At the nut they are good 1.52inch on center instead of 1.41 but as you get up past the 5th fret I don't like it. The bridge pins are 2.33 OC instead of 2.2. So I want to plug and re drill. I'll leave the high E where it is. And I can live with the the fact the low E will be out of paralell. So the big question is, am I going to have to make like a .25" plug with the grain oriented the same way as the bridge or what. And probably epoxy????

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Mike McNerney

My advice would be to make a slotted saddle, much like a nut…

Cross grain plugs are best, but not really necessary. The hardest part of this job is getting accurate placement of the holes.
I would use CA glue. It has largely replaced epoxy in my shop.

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John

When we plug bridge pin holes we make plugs that resemble the top. For example if our top has .099" of spruce followed by .115" of bridge plate made out of maple that's that our plugs will become, two piece, two woods. We assemble our plugs and glue them in place with CA.

Reason being someday if the bridge plate has to be serviced and bridge plates do need to be serviced at times on vintage instruments the plate will not be pinned in place but will have plugs that will separate much like the plate will from the top.

A bit of an extra step, not much but a bit of an extra step but we believe we increase the serviceability quotient of the instrument and we are not doing anything that will cause issues later.

Top side where the plugs have been installed in the bridge patch be sure to have the patch properly prepared and where the plugs are completely level so they do not discourage wood to wood contact when gluing the bridge.

PS: Whatever your top is is the top half of the plug and whatever your plate is make the other half of the plug if this makes more sense. We turn our plugs on our lathe.

My thoughts are similar to Ed's but if you don't want to slot the saddle you could offset the slots in the pin holes inward a 1/16th of an inch on the E strings and slightly less as you work toward the middle to achieve uniform spacing. If the pinholes have been previously slotted you could fill the existing slots with wood dust and CA before cutting new ones.
This would be a lot less work and probably less conspicuous than plugging and redrilling.

I made a slotted saddle once and it dramatically reduced the tone and volume of the guitar. Just saying...

I knew a very good mandolin player who preferred slotted saddles on her instruments, but those were mandolin family instruments.
Slotting the bridge pin holes might be a better option if the less invasive slotted saddle doesn't work out.