FAO: Rob-C

[The Dude]

Rob,

Could do with a bit of luthier advice

I've just bought an old 1950 Hofner parlour guitar (in need of some serious TLC) which I intended to fix up and also replace the nut and bridge to raise the action so I can use it as a slide guitar.

I didn't realise that the guitar had a floating bridge until I'd bought it (yes, Ebay ) So, a couple of things;

- the bridge itself is in reasonable condition as is the bridge nut and it looks like a tricky job to extract the old bridge nut to replace it. My thoughts were to either replace the whole floating bridge or try to shim the existing one (to raise it). Any thoughts?

- some top tips on getting the intonation correct across all strings? Is it just a matter of trial and error?

- for what I want to use it for, should I be going for a flat-ish or more pronounced radius on the nut and bridge? My thinking here is that it would be better to go for a more pronounced radius (thinking of a violin). I don't really know if this is generally how slide guitars are built.

Thanks,

Neil

[Rob-C]

Hello again...

Could you post a photo of the original bridge? My first instinct would be to keep the old one safe and make / modify a replacement version rather than butcher the original. I'm guessing this is a flat-top guitar, is it? You could probably sand the "feet" flat on one of these adjustable bridges and still be able to raise the action high enough:

http://www.highlystrung.co.uk/acatalog/Bridges_for...Cello_StyleGuitars.html

If you're using the guitar purely for slide, then no adjustment of intonation is required, since you won't be deflecting the strings down against the frets. The distance from nut to bridge should be exactly 2x the distance from the nut to the 12th fret.

I've seen slide guitars with both flat and curved bridge profiles; If the fretboard is flat, then I'd go for a flat bridge. Likewise if the fretboard is curved, I'd be looking for a curved profile to the bridge.

BTW goes the guitar have a "zero" fret? A lot of Hofners of this vintage seem to (I have a 1956ish President archtop). If so, then you shouldn't fit a raised nut.

[The Dude]

Rob-C said:

Hello again...

Could you post a photo of the original bridge? My first instinct would be to keep the old one safe and make / modify a replacement version rather than butcher the original. I'm guessing this is a flat-top guitar, is it? You could probably sand the "feet" flat on one of these adjustable bridges and still be able to raise the action high enough:

http://www.highlystrung.co.uk/acatalog/Bridges_for...Cello_StyleGuitars.html

If you're using the guitar purely for slide, then no adjustment of intonation is required, since you won't be deflecting the strings down against the frets. The distance from nut to bridge should be exactly 2x the distance from the nut to the 12th fret.

I've seen slide guitars with both flat and curved bridge profiles; If the fretboard is flat, then I'd go for a flat bridge. Likewise if the fretboard is curved, I'd be looking for a curved profile to the bridge.

BTW goes the guitar have a "zero" fret? A lot of Hofners of this vintage seem to (I have a 1956ish President archtop). If so, then you shouldn't fit a raised nut.

As luck would have it, the action ended up being reasonably high with just replacing the nut with an 11mm blank and cutting the slots just deep enough so no need to do anything with the bridge at all.

One thing that did go wrong and given your last comment I hope I didn't completely do the wrong thing. As careful as I was with removing the old nut, it ended up snapping off and took a small chunk of the fretboard with it from behind the zero fret. Seeing as the zero fret also came lose as a consequence of this, I decided to remove it and cut the fretboard up to the slot for the zero fret and mount the nut there, slightly forward from its original position. It seemed like the logical thing to do. What are your thoughts on this?

[Rob-C]

The Dude said:

What are your thoughts on this?

That'll be fine.