Thanks for the replies. I've been away for a few days and am now just getting back to it.
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Originally Posted by Mbroady
This is not as it should be. Was the guitar purchased new from a dealer? Ultimately a new saddle would be they way to go. And if it was purchased new I don’t see why the warranty would not cover the cost for a replacement and set up (of the new saddle)
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Yes, it was purchased new from a dealer. I thought about contacting them, but I'd rather not have to deal with shipping it back to the east coast, and perhaps back to Furch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RoyBoy
In your photo it looks like the saddle slot has a scooped out area matching the length of the shim, like it wasn't milled flat. Perhaps the shim was an attempt to fill that dished out part of the slot, albeit not well because the dished area has a curved bottom.
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The bottom of the slot was flat. Hard to say for sure, but I think someone at Furch just got lazy and, for whatever reason, thought it was OK to just shim up 30% of the saddle length. Or else they had the shim in there for some reason and forgot to remove it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nikpearson
And cannot see any scoop in the saddle slot. The two pictures appear to be the saddle slot with a short shim in place and then the same shim on a piece of light-coloured wood. Maybe I’ve got this wrong?...
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I think you got it right. The first picture showed the saddle slot after I removed the saddle. There was a short piece of shim material in the bottom of the slot. The second picture showed the shim sitting on a flat face of the saddle so you could see it more easily.
Given that only the center part of the saddle was shimmed, I could rock the saddle side to side by quite a bit. In the best case, that meant only 30% of the saddle was in contact with the shim and saddle slot. Depending on how well the shim was centered and the tension on the bass vs treble strings, the saddle could have rocked one way or another when the strings were under tension, which means the saddle would only have two points of contact - one at the bottom of the slot and one at a corner of the shim. And the shim was free to move within the slot. So when the guitar was disassembled for travel, the shim would be free to move side to side in the slot. So this was pretty clearly a mistake.
Re the buzz after I removed the shim bit, I checked the relief and found that it was pretty much nonexistent. I gave the truss rod a tweak and the buzz is now gone! In the end, the action is now lower than it was and the guitar sounds even better than before - probably because it now has full contact between the saddle and bridge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dbintegrity
Looks to me someone got lazy.. just make a new saddle or have it done and be done with it.... anyone who put a 3/4" shim probably has rubber bands and duct tape in their tool box...  |
Agreed!