Hipshot Hardtail Placement Question

[Xibuque]

Hey guys,
I have been reading about bridge placement and i realized that people have different aproaches and techniques about bridge placement. Some uses the mount screw as refference or the front end of the bridge plate behind the scale lenght line, others get the saddle in its most forward position then back off a litte to align to the scale lengh line, some people use the middle of the adjustabilty range of the saddles to align it to the scale lenght line.

I'm designing a baritone guitar 26,5", What the most accurate hipshot placemente methode would you recomend? I'm not a builder, so i dont have a guitar body, neck and bridge in hands, just a laptop and a CAD software. I will use the hipshot bridge pdf as refference.
Do you guys think that substract 4mm of the scale length line and align the front of the bridge plate is fine?
There is difference between the placement of a regular guitar and a baritone, does the saddle need more or less room to intonate?

 

[Xibuque]

oh, sorry not 4mm, it is 7mm, which is equivalent to put the high E saddle to its most forward then back off 1,75mm to align it to the scale length.

 

[Hollowway]

It’s funny that you post this, because I am doing e exact same thing on a build. I bought a Warmoth build off a guy, and this is all I have left to do, so I just did a bunch of reading this weekend. What seems to be the correct approach is to:

1) Mount the neck. (Like, screw it to the guitar body, don’t try to mate with it.)
2) measure the distance from the nut to the 12th fret. This x2 is the scale length. Measure that, and draw a line, or put a piece of tape, etc, on the guitar at that spot
3) put the high and low saddles on and place them in the most forward position on the bridge.
4) Put strings in the them (the high E and low E) and use that to center the bridge to the middle. So that there enough overhang on the treble and bass side of the strings.
5) position the bridge such that the front edge of the saddles are ON the scale length line. Bit behind, not a little in front.

The reason in step 5 is that intonation will always pull the strings back from the scale length line, never short of it. The actual scale length doesn’t matter, and the bridge itself doesn’t matter - just the saddle position.

Anyway, hopefully others will chime in to make sure what I’ve been reading is correct.

 

[Winspear]

^ Correct, string will NEVER need to be shorter than scale. High E forwardmost position at scale length is fine - maybe shift it forward 1mm to account for some error.
I find it very annoying trying to design CAD files for bridges that don't specify the saddle ranges - not something I'd want to do without bridge in hand! Thankfully Hipshot do

 

[Xibuque]

Awesome! Thank you both <3 i really appreciate your help!! Just let me be assure that i got it right, i'm a non english speaker... so... let me double check it haha.

1 - Draw the scale lenght line (high E and Low E);
2 - Get the max intonation range of the saddles forward;
3 - Back off the saddle a little (1mm);
4 - Once I back-off the saddle1mm I have to align its front edge to match the scale length line.
Something like this:

 

[Winspear]

Ah no, sorry for the confusion there - whilst what you've done shouldn't be any problem, I meant moving the bridge 1mm toward the headstock - which whilst in theory shouldn't be necessary just accounts for any error and makes sure the saddle can definitely reach the scale length line for the high E whilst wasting as little backtravel as possible for the bass end

 

[Winspear]

Sorry yeah I think you got what I meant haha, looks like you already did that !

 

[Xibuque]

I really appreciate your help. It's awesome to see someone who does not treat guitar building tips as a marsonary stuff like most of the people on Facebook communities do. I'm not a builder, but I love to design guitars. This is the exact way I was placing the bridge, based on the high E saddle, but I have read a lot of different information online that made me think I was doing it completely wrong.

 

[soldierkahn]

It’s funny that you post this, because I am doing e exact same thing on a build. I bought a Warmoth build off a guy, and this is all I have left to do, so I just did a bunch of reading this weekend. What seems to be the correct approach is to:

1) Mount the neck. (Like, screw it to the guitar body, don’t try to mate with it.)
2) measure the distance from the nut to the 12th fret. This x2 is the scale length. Measure that, and draw a line, or put a piece of tape, etc, on the guitar at that spot
3) put the high and low saddles on and place them in the most forward position on the bridge.
4) Put strings in the them (the high E and low E) and use that to center the bridge to the middle. So that there enough overhang on the treble and bass side of the strings.
5) position the bridge such that the front edge of the saddles are ON the scale length line. Bit behind, not a little in front.

The reason in step 5 is that intonation will always pull the strings back from the scale length line, never short of it. The actual scale length doesn’t matter, and the bridge itself doesn’t matter - just the saddle position.

Anyway, hopefully others will chime in to make sure what I’ve been reading is correct.

ive used this method for my placement methods. hasnt burned me yet

 

[soldierkahn]

its the method i used for my Tight End R