Break angle at saddle not great

[kirtley2013]

On my J-35 I have been working on getting the action good, the nut slots were too low, today I went to see a local luthier and he showed me how to shim the nut, so I did that today, the glue is currently drying.
The saddle is pretty close to right but on the 6th string the break angle is quite shallow, what the luthier said was to shave down the bridge a bit on one side (because the J-35 bridge is thicker at the 6th string than the 1st) to increase the break angle at the saddle, would you recommend this?

[John Arnold]

Just ramp the string slot a little. I don't like to shave a bridge unless it is too thick overall.

[arie]

Originally Posted by kirtley2013

On my J-35 I have been working on getting the action good, the nut slots were too low, today I went to see a local luthier and he showed me how to shim the nut, so I did that today, the glue is currently drying.
The saddle is pretty close to right but on the 6th string the break angle is quite shallow, what the luthier said was to shave down the bridge a bit on one side (because the J-35 bridge is thicker at the 6th string than the 1st) to increase the break angle at the saddle, would you recommend this?

slotting the pin hole would be a better idea and you might as well do all of them while you're at it for consistency's sake.

your J35 is a new one right? why so many problems?

[kirtley2013]

Originally Posted by arie

shaving down anything on the saddle will make the break angle shallower not higher. slotting the pin hole would be a better idea and you might as well do all of them while you're at it for consistency's sake.

assuming that you are recalling what the luthier told you correctly, the advice is a little off...

your J35 is a new one right? why so many problems?

The pin holes are already slotted but i could probably slot them a little more.

It's a year old, it's not so much problems with the guitar, it is undoing my previous screw ups, the nut slots were a little high, but i ended up taking them down too far, so I had to shim the nut back up, should all be alright now, and as for the break angle, it is just that the saddle is a little low.

at least I'm learning from all of this!

[arie]

Originally Posted by kirtley2013

The pin holes are already slotted but i could probably slot them a little more.

It's a year old, it's not so much problems with the guitar, it is undoing my previous screw ups, the nut slots were a little high, but i ended up taking them down too far, so I had to shim the nut back up, should all be alright now, and as for the break angle, it is just that the saddle is a little low.

at least I'm learning from all of this!

ok. keep in mind if you do decide to shave down the bridge, you might have to ream the pin holes deeper to re-seat the effected pins to their new (lower) height.

got pix?

p.s. i edited my previous post because i realized a bit later that i misunderstood yours. i thought the luthier suggested shaving down the saddle instead of the bridge. my apologies.

[Alan Carruth]

Break angle at the bridge is less of an issue than most people seem to think it is. Basically, so long as the strings stay in contact with the top of the saddle throughout their vibration cycle, and don't roll side to side too much, all of the signal will be transferred to the top. you can get away with as little as a six degree angle, which is what a lot of archtop makers use. Experiments I've done show that increasing the break angle beyond that does not make any difference that anybody can hear.

What does make a difference is altering the height of the strings off the top. If you raised the break angle by putting in a taller saddle, that would affect the sound. These changes can be measured objectively, and also heard in blind tests.

Shaving down the bridge will reduce it's mass. This tends to increase the output a bit, and especially in the treble. By comparison, raping the slot a bit more probably won't change anything much, except that there's more tipping force on the saddle, which makes in more likely to break out the front of the slot. Acoustically, though, it should not do much, unless you're listening with your eyes and hearing the myth.

[John Arnold]

Don't deepen the slot, just ramp it at the top.

[B. Howard]

Alan Has it right on the head. The bridge end of the string is no different than the nut end when it comes to what is functional. Typical break angle at the nut is around 15 degrees and that is plenty for the saddle as well, 10 degrees is likely adequate. People obsess over this angle when it has very very little to do with the geometry that actually determines how much leverage the strings can develop on the top.