I've had a bundle of decent quality blank bone saddles delivered from China and want to experiment a bit. I've made saddles over the years, compensated and non-compensated, and seem to have become good enough at it - I've seen worse in shops.

I wouldn't exactly be able to express this in universally understandable physics and geometry but intonation starts to go adrift if action is too high or two low. I am not myself playing classical guitar, mostly, but am using a nylon string of the classical type for some sort of folk/ New Age hybrid.. I'd be interested here what people here have action-wise and any thoughts on it.

I'm tempted to say that non-compensated saddles have better tone - maybe a sharp-ish point of bearing rather than 3mm of lightly rounded bearing area is tonally compromised? I have made a few non-compensated saddles that don't suffer intonation-wise and it's a bit of a shock when it has happened - maybe the saddle height on the treble and bass sides was just ideal by near-coincidence.

I think this guitar came with 4mm on the bass side and about 3.25mm on the treble. I think I've read that a classical guitar often has the action the same for both the treble and bass sides though (perhaps for flamenco intentional buzzing)? I have a 3mm action for both sides at present and though it feels lovely the G string just sounds bad, cheap. And then I read of a bozza nova guitarist having a 2.75mm action on his nylon string.

Thanks.

Antony Grenney <antony.grenney010471@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've had a bundle of decent quality blank bone saddles delivered from
> China and want to experiment a bit. I've made saddles over the years,
> compensated and non-compensated, and seem to have become good enough at
> it - I've seen worse in shops.
>
> I wouldn't exactly be able to express this in universally understandable
> physics and geometry but intonation starts to go adrift if action is too
> high or two low. I am not myself playing classical guitar, mostly, but am
> using a nylon string of the classical type for some sort of folk/ New Age
> hybrid. I'd be interested here what people here have action-wise and any thoughts on it.
>
> I'm tempted to say that non-compensated saddles have better tone - maybe
> a sharp-ish point of bearing rather than 3mm of lightly rounded bearing
> area is tonally compromised? I have made a few non-compensated saddles
> that don't suffer intonation-wise and it's a bit of a shock when it has
> happened - maybe the saddle height on the treble and bass sides was just
> ideal by near-coincidence.
>
> I think this guitar came with 4mm on the bass side and about 3.25mm on
> the treble. I think I've read that a classical guitar often has the
> action the same for both the treble and bass sides though (perhaps for
> flamenco intentional buzzing)? I have a 3mm action for both sides at
> present and though it feels lovely the G string just sounds bad, cheap.
> And then I read of a bozza nova guitarist having a 2.75mm action on his nylon string.
>
> Thanks.
>

Wait until the humidity is high and has been high for a few days, then get
each string as low as you can tolerate the buzzing. High humidity makes the
neck bend in the direction of being convex; low humidity makes the neck
bend in the direction of being concave. Play the loudest tones that you
will ever play that you don’t want to buzz, usually, but that you’ll
tolerate if it only happens in unusually high humidity. Keep lowering the
saddle until you get to the point right before where the string’s buzzing
is absolutely intolerable.

--
Matt