1965 Gibson J-50: New Bone Saddle

Related Topics: | 1965 Gibson J-50 Bridge Plate Overlay |


1. A Worn Out Saddle. This bone saddle was made about 30 years ago. The strings had worn deep notches into the top of the saddle. This wear combined with low action resulting from structural changes made to the guitar by a bridge reglue and bridge plate repair made it necessary to retire this old saddle.	2. Checking the Original Saddles Thickness with our shop's calipers will indicate the necessary thickness of the bone blank from which I will fabricate a new saddle for this guitar.


3. The Saddle Blank I'll be using is approximately .012" thicker than the original saddle. We buy our saddle blanks through Luthier's Mercentile because of the high quality of their bone.	4. Sanding the Blank to Thickness on our granite slab with some 220 grit sandpaper. I'm checking the thickness frequently with the calipers. As I near the final thickness I'll start test fitting the blank. Also, I'll complete thickness sanding this blank with 400 followed by 600 grit sandpaper. We get our 3m fre-cut sandpaper from Stew Mac.


5. Rounding the End of the Saddle on the disc sander. I'm holding the blank tightly against this square steel block to ensure that I don't rock the saddle from side to side. I'm crowning the end of the blank by moving it accross the sanding disc as I pivot the saddle from about a 30 degree angle to a 90 degree angle. This square steel block is very helpful in stabalizing the bone blank.	6. Marking the Rough Length of the blank is possible now that I have one end of the saddle rounded.


7. Grinding the Blank to Rough Length. Here again the square steel stock stabalizes the blank, ensuring a clean, square end when I'm done grinding.	8. Rounding the Opposite End of the Saddle. I'm crowning this end in the exact same fashion in which I rounded the other end.


9. Squaring the Bottom of the Blank on the shop's granite slab with Stew Mac's 3m fre-cut 220 grit sandpaper.	10. Flatening the Bottom of the Blank on a mill file ensures good contact accross the bottom of the saddle slot (so long as the bottom of the saddle slot is flat). This hardware store mill file is anything but flat, therefore I'm using the convex side of the file for this job. By checking my work against a straight edge I will get good results.


11. Transfering the Radius of the Old Saddle. Although the old saddle may not be radiused in a fashion that I would deem appropriate for this guitar I will not change the radius. My objective is only to raise the action a touch to make up for the changes in action from flattening the top with a bridge plate repair and bridge reglue.	12. Radiusing the Top of the Saddle is most quickly done on the belt sander, however, the saddle I am copying has such a shallow radius that I can quickly radius the top of the saddle with a small mill file.


13. Contouring the Top of the Saddle with the mill file is necessary because the strings will approach the saddle at a rather steep angle as they come out of the pin holes in the bridge.	14. Sanding the Top of the Saddle with 220, 400 and 600 grit sandpaper removes the file marks and prepares the bone for its final polish.


15. #0000 Steel Wool begins the polishing process.	16. Micro Mesh abrasive pads follow the steel wool. These pads start at 2400 grit and go up through 12000 grit. These polishing pads come from Stew Mac.


17. Laying Out the Final Action Adjustment with a pencil. I'm measuring the protruding lead be- cause I'll be using the pencil as a marking guage.	18. Laying Out the Final Action Adjustment Cont. The tip of the pencil acts as a stop which allows me to accurately mark off 1/32" with the protruding pencil lead.


19. The Final Action Adjustment is occuring solely on the granite slab and a mill file since this blank was so closely matched to the original saddle.	20. With a New Bone Saddle this guitar is ready for another 40+ years at least!