Re: Bridge misplaced on D-18
- From: "Kevin Hall" <timberline@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 14:49:31 -0500
If it were .250" out it would have been virtually unplayable above the
middle of the board by anyone with even a vestigal sense of pitch. I have
encountered misplaced Martin bridges, but quarter of an inch is huge in
terms of out-tonation. Can't possibly call it 'in-tonation' when it's that
far out of whack.
I'd have that thing double checked by another gtr. mechanic if it were mine.
You can do the measuring yourself without much bother, if you have a
yardstick or a metric equivalent. Stick the zero end up against the nut at
the first string position and measure the distance to the middle of the
saddle where the first string crosses over it. Should be 645.2mm with the
possibility of about 2mm of additional compensation in order to play in
tune. While you're at it you may want to confirm that the bridge is
actually on it square. You can get a rough check of that by measuring from
the front edge of the body to the front face of the bridge, laying your
yardstick or metre stick either side of the f/board.
Quarter of an inch is just about 6mm of error, and would be immediately
apparent.
Over the last decade or so Martin warranty service outlet status has been
awarded to shops which only have half-assed repairmen on staff, often with
only very basic repair facilities for doing things like replacing nuts and
saddles and dressing frets. I'm not saying that is the case with your guy,
but the number of properly qualified Martin repair outfits in the UK has to
be significantly smaller than the number in North America, and the
situation is no hell over here.
A couple of years ago I got a call from the plant in Nazareth inquiring as
to what level of repairwork I was able to handle in my shop. When I told
them I was equipped for full restorations; new tops, backs, resets, etc.
etc. they were surprised and indicated they had only found a handful of
their authorized warranty spots who were still willing and able to undertake
such work. The majority of the guys who are doing it are, like myself,
well onto the inexorable slide into geezerhood and are about to quit if they
haven't already.
The very fact that the folks running the repair/warranty facility at Martin
these days had to phone 'round their network of warranty outlets to discover
which of them could actually fix things speaks volumes about the state of
affairs.
Good luck with your guitar.
KH
"Ken Cashion" <kcashion@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ebsq22955cin41tcjcrpfip52ep06pqvr6@xxxxxxxxxx
On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 17:19:11 GMT, Jerome Ranch <ranchjp@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Jeez, I've had the D-18 since 1969, generally sounded fine, but was
not as well intonated as I might like, and now that my ears is
sensitive to this, I took it in to get a compensated saddle.
My Martin luthier tells me the saddle is 0.25" too far from nut, that
one reason why it sounds a bit off.
There is insufficient room to recut the bridge for a new saddle, so a
new bridge has to be made that is wider.
Martin is paying for it
Interesting.
Jerry
Jerry, are you sure it is 1/4 of an inch out? That is a tremendous
error. A guy half paying attention should have seen that error. I
wrestle with 0.025" with my bridges/saddles.
And I wasting time?
Ken
.
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