34" Scale Intonation Help?

[BrendaEM]

Hi,

I am making a 34" scaled touch instrument. At some point I will have to attach the bridge. Generally, I suppose a 34 inch scaled instrument will intonate at around 34 inches, but it would help me to know where your instrument's strings actually intonated at, for each string.

If you have a 34" scaled instrument, with at least 8 strings, if someone could measure from the nut to the brudge saddle for each string and post the results here, I would appreciate it.

[I am assuming that they will start around 34" for the thin strings and grow, but to how much?

Thanks You,
Brenda

[Dave1166]

My high B-flat string looks to be about 33 7/8" while the low B is about 34 1/4". Will your bridge be adjustable? I think 1/2" of travel should be enough (depending on your tuning).

Dave

[BrendaEM]

The bridge will be adjustable, but I am still worried about bridge placement.

Thank You : )

[traktor]

Brenda, one instrument to the next can have rather widely differing intonation settings. So much depends upon the action, which changes string height, which changes where the string actually touches the saddle (on most saddle designs), which affects the intonation setting.

When I set up the Feiten intonation system, it is even more surprising. Two instruments of the same kind, and both dead on as the laboratory strobe measures the results, and one of the instruments will have all or nearly all saddles more or less in a flat line. The other instrument has 'jaggy-looking' settings, with some saddles leaping forward and some back. And yet both are correct, and both sound wonderfully in tune as you play. As best I can tell, the difference is caused by (sometimes very minute) differences in saddle height, string angle (due to neck socket), truss setting, and the action in general.

When I first began, I thought I'd just do a Feiten intonation once then photograph the saddles, and that would be my starting place in future. Oops! It didn't work at all!

Now, as regards setting your bridge, I'd guess that doubling the nut to 12th fret distance would roughly locate the 'middle' saddles.

However, if you want to test, why not arrange a working jig for the smallest and largest string? That is, on the rear of the instrument affix some kind of anchor, and from that anchor bring strong wire around the butt of the instrument, and tie this strong wire to the mount holes in your bridge plate. Separately do the same thing with a couple of small washers, whose holes would catch the string balls.

Mount two tuners, throw on the tiny and big string from the tuner to the washers, going over and under the saddles so as to ride on the saddle similar to the end product. If you don't have frets or a nut, fudge them with toothpicks stuck down with double-stick tape, then tune that baby up.

Then, on your jig, set the intonation.

This experiment may not be perfect, but it would seem to be as exact as would be possible to be before completing instrument construction.