I have a child
sized guitar for my nephew to play. The saddle is not glued
down.
How do I find the best place to position the saddle? Also,
the guitar won't stay in tune.
Jay
I'm guessing yours is like one I started playing on. The
bridge
& saddle were
all in one piece of wood and it wasn't glued down. It just
slid
on the surface of the guitar if the strings were loosened some, or fell
off
the guitar completely if the strings were removed.
What I did was find the spot where each string had the best
intonation. By this I mean the note played open and the note
fretted at the 12th
fret are the same, only an octave apart. The spot under the
Bass
E string will probably be back a little further than under the
High E string resulting in the bridge/saddle being placed at a slight
angle.
Some of these child guitars are made so inaccurately that doing this
will not correct the situation enough to play satisfactorily because
the frets are not spaced properly. If this is the case, the
guitar should be considered a toy and you're better off just getting a
better
guitar.
If the guitar has friction tuners (simply a peg in a hole) they may be
the
reason for the guitar not staying in tune. If the tuners have
gears on the
back, try gently tightening the screw in the middle of the
gear. This may
help.
Bob, Gman ( o )==#