Monday evening, June 20th. . . .
OOPS . . . . I forgot to take a photo when I was gluing the bridge. Sorry 'bout that!!!
ANYWAY. . . .I used my Stew-Mac "Saddle-matic" tool (I'll get a photo up of this tool one of these days) to easily determine the standard position of the saddle for this 16.75" scale tenor. When I made this bridge, I liked the idea of a compensated split bridge (for the standard "my dog has fleas" tuning), so I emailed John Mayes for information on how to compensate it. I had seen and been impressed by his proprietary split saddle design --- which actually has two tiny saddles for the 4th string, so you can tune in either the standard G or the low G tuning --- but for this ukulele, I decided not to do the low G saddle. He very kindly sent me the compensation measurements.
It was the first time I'd slotted my own bridge. It wasn't as difficult as I had thought it would be. I used Stew-Mac's saddle-slotting jig (I'm beginning to sound like a walking advertisement for Stew-Mac, huh? It's just that I've found so many of their tools to be really helpful!).
I am really jazzed about how this is turning out! I think the koa is SO beautiful.
Tomorrow I plan to level and dress the frets, shape and slot the nut, make the saddle(s), install the tuners, and string the thing up! I have NO idea how this is going to sound, being all-koa, instead of a spruce-topped uke like my last one. . . .
