Saddle Shims
 

What are folks using for saddle shims?

I made one the other day out of a credit card that was 0.8mm thick as a temporary
measure until I shape a new blank. I was surprised that it didn't seem to effect the tone.

My pick-up wire :)

I, too, use credit card, 0.75mm thick, under saddles, with no problem.

I bought some ebony headplates from Stewmac and sawed them into 1/8" strips. We superglue them to the bottom of the saddle, then file them down to the appropriate height.

Thanks all,

I did think about gluing a veneer to the underside of my saddle but thought that the woods I have may be a bit soft. The ebony headstock veneer is a good idea.

However, this was only ever going to be a temporary "fix" to get the height right before I work on a new saddle blank. The one I was about to work on was warped so I have had to order another. I was just surprised that the credit card fix didn't kill the tone or sustain. I had expected a noticeable loss of both.

Just as an aside; I've been shaping up my saddles in the traditional straight, round-topped, non compensated style recently and I'm getting a far more mellow and rich tone than I was getting with compensated saddles. This is particularly noticeable on the treble strings. I think that, in general, the pre-shaped compensated saddles that you can buy have both sharper and non-centred string release points and that both these factors can have quite an impact on tone - in general making it harsher.

I really don't need any individual string saddle compensation on my guitars as they play just fine with the amount of compensation provided by an angled saddle slot - and I am very particular about my tuning being "just so".

I'd be interested to know if others have experimented with fitting old style round-topped saddles?