Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jim Junksville Sharkey on March 21, 2012 at 2:27am

hi there.

not sure on the type of acoustic guitar bridge you got there, but ive used these in the past and just pulled the saddle out of the bridge with pliers and just turned it around. have you a picture of the bridge?

Permalink Reply by Jez Longshanks Walker on March 21, 2012 at 2:30am

Hiya, you could fill the slot with a piece of rosewood and cut another slot but it's be easier to make another one. Does it have bridge pin holes?

Permalink Reply by Hayden A Butler on March 21, 2012 at 3:28am

Stewmac has lots of stuff klike this - google it. :)

Permalink Reply by Dom Kelly on March 21, 2012 at 10:18am

Chaps,

As suggested I've uploaded a picture of the bridge to clarify my predicament. The saddle comes out easy enough with pliers but as you can see, reversing it would have no effect on the compensation. 

I've also had a quick look on StewMac's site but can't see anything suitable on there.

Attachments:

• IMG-20120321-00001.jpg, 232 KB

Permalink Reply by Michael Fred Johnson on March 22, 2012 at 4:13am

Modify the shape of the bridge and stick it on at the appropriate angle to give the compensation you want

Permalink Reply by Mark on March 22, 2012 at 10:34am

I'm dubious about re-using that bridge. Clearly, given the way the saddle slot is angled and the top is contoured, you can't just turn it around or flip it over. You could perhaps cut it around a lot if you had the tools but I'm not sure the result would be worth the effort.

As for the saddle, it's difficult to tell because your pic shows an "end on" view - I can't see the top so I can't see whether it's cut with individual compensation for each string. If it's just straight (ie. without the staggered bits for each string) then you ought to be able to re-use it in a new bridge angled for a left hander.

If the saddle is cut differently for each string then you can't just flip it around (for the same underlying reason as for the bridge). But left handed bridge saddles can be bought cheaply - a quick search turned up the following for £1.25 on eBay and I'm sure there are others out there.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Left-h-Bridge-saddle-acoustic-guitar-71-5...

However...having said all the above, I reckon people sometimes worry too much about bridge compensation. Almost everything about a guitar involves some sort of compromise. Usually some approximate solution will work fine in practice. Many great guitars have been made with very simple straight bridges where the only effort at compensation was a general slant of the bridge as a whole (ie. without individual adjustment for each string). Many GBGs get by very well thank you with a bolt for a bridge. So if the guitar body is an old slide case then consider a crude and simple bridge (with some sort of tailpiece to anchor the strings).

To some extent it depends how the guitar will be played - if it will be mostly strummed with open-string chords and fretting at the head end of the neck then you can get away with quite approximate bridge compensation. If there's going to be lots of high end widdling around then a bit more work might be needed to get good intonation.

Finally, remember this cigar box guitar thing comes out of the idea of building simple instruments from junk and basic components. It's about character rather than perfection. If you want something which is a perfect equivalent of a normal guitar then maybe you just want a normal guitar.