Saddle Up

[jere7my]

The saddle of a guitar is the little strip of ivory (or pseudo-ivory) that holds the strings up off the bridge. It transmits the vibrations of the strings to the bridge, and thence to the body, and since it is quite narrow it does it without muting the strings very much. The saddle is, essentially, a knife-edge putting a corner in six very tense strings that want to be straight lines, so there's a lot of force exerted on it, and the strings can wear little grooves in the material. When that happens, the strings bind up in the grooves, and the sound is not transmitted as cleanly to the body. This has been the case for me for some months now.

So, tonight, while changing strings in preparation for Friday's contra, I took out the saddle and sanded and polished it with one of K.'s emery boards. It was an experiment, but it worked remarkably well. I now have a groove-free saddle, and fingertips coated with powdered Tusq™. (Let us hope it isn't poisonous.) It might be my imagination that Elsinore sounds better now; still, I don't think I'm hearing the ugly overtones on the high E that I used to.

This trick will only work so many times before I need to buy a new saddle; the action is lowered a bit every time a layer of Tusq™ is sanded away, so eventually the strings will be sitting on the frets, and the clever little string-width compensations in the saddle become lessened. But I'm pleased to have added another Mr. Fixit notch to my belt. Er, strap.

GuitarElectronics.com mailed my strings and my new orange Dunlop fin-picks today, so I should be all set for Friday. Lovely.

Comments

Tusq™!

[(Anonymous)]

Is Tusq™ procured from Elefantz! poachers?

Thanks,
-Vardibidian.

Re: Tusq™!

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

But of course—and was that a Tom Wham reference, or do I miss my guess?

Re: Tusq™!

[(Anonymous)]

Lord, no, or at least not intentionally. I had entirely forgotten who or what Tom Wham was, and had to google. It's possible that I had somehow submlimated the reference long ago; often enough I think I'm inventing some clever(ish) phrase, when I'm really just transmitting it.

Thanks,
-V.