I have a template for marking the locations for the screw holes. This template is one of my finest achievements, I vividly remember the wonderful day when both halves of my brain lined up and fired the idea behind it.
With the cone in the well and a 3 mm drill bit at the 12th fret I dial in the height of the saddle. The biscuit is fastened to the cone with a screw from underneath.
With the height sort of correct I mark for the string notches with my four point divider, made by Ken Timms. Ken is a master craftsman.
Screwing down the coverplate I managed to capture an eerie presence on camera! I’ll give any ghost hunter a run for their money.
For the nut I use bone. I ordered a bunch of guitar saddle blanks on ebay, but also got a bunch of ready made saddles in the package. Never mind, I use a quarter of each. In the pic the legendary half pencil gives me the depth of the nut slots, as it rides atop the frets.
Bye bye, three quarters of a free bone saddle. You can see I saw to a line above what the half pencil gave me.
Et voilà..! A nut. I angle the slots to give the impression I know what I’m doing.
Then I brought the ukes, the fishing line, the glass beads and a rusty nail cutter upstairs because it is chilly [and cluttered] in the workshop.
Hell yes we are! A few tweaks in the nut slots and saddle notches and they should be good to go.
With the cone in the well and a 3 mm drill bit at the 12th fret I dial in the height of the saddle. The biscuit is fastened to the cone with a screw from underneath.
The last batch of cones, coverplates, biscuits and saddles came from this great shop in England. I noticed today that they had included all screws, and those for the coverplate were much neater than the ones I used before. Yay! The shop was Drummond & Hammett (Kirk, obvs).
With the height sort of correct I mark for the string notches with my four point divider, made by Ken Timms. Ken is a master craftsman.
Screwing down the coverplate I managed to capture an eerie presence on camera! I’ll give any ghost hunter a run for their money.
For the nut I use bone. I ordered a bunch of guitar saddle blanks on ebay, but also got a bunch of ready made saddles in the package. Never mind, I use a quarter of each. In the pic the legendary half pencil gives me the depth of the nut slots, as it rides atop the frets.
Bye bye, three quarters of a free bone saddle. You can see I saw to a line above what the half pencil gave me.
Et voilà..! A nut. I angle the slots to give the impression I know what I’m doing.
Then I brought the ukes, the fishing line, the glass beads and a rusty nail cutter upstairs because it is chilly [and cluttered] in the workshop.
Are we getting close to the finish line yet?
Hell yes we are! A few tweaks in the nut slots and saddle notches and they should be good to go.
I told the customers that I never expect payment before I string them up and see if they work. That will take me a day or two but I am optimistic. Even about that strange beast, the tenor reso.
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