Tom Placement

[stiggz]

did a search read somthing drak said and got confused, cos he said

you find the correct location,....., hold the bridge exactly in place, it should be sitting directly over your scale length line

that confused me, cos stewmac has a fret calculator that gives a specific mesurement, for 647.7 mm it gives

649.287 mm (±0.5 mm) from nut to center of treble-side post. Mount bass-side post 3 mm further from the nut.

thats a little more than the scale length, wat is the correct way to do it????

[jnewman]

That gets you set up right, with the TOM angled about 2-3 degrees and the first string saddle about 3/4 of the way forward and at the scale length mark.

[MasterMinds]

Don't take what I say and do it - but here's my guess.

You'd want to center the intonators, and then put those directly at scale length. This allows the same room for increasing and cecreasing length.

stew-mac appears to be telling you to make it non-parallel to the neck? Not sure why!

[stiggz]

i know the TOM 's are angled, but what i dont know is the placement, whether it be at the 647.7mm at the center of the treble post (scale lenght same as 25.5 inch) or center of the post at what stewmac suggests at the 649.2mm mark from the nut

Edited April 1, 2005 by where's the beef???

[jnewman]

i know the TOM 's are angled, but what i dont know is the placement, whether it be at the 647.7mm (scale lenght same as 25.5 inch) or at what stewmac suggests at the 649.2mm mark

←

That slightly longer length to the treble side post accounts for the fact that you want the first string saddle to be right at the scale length, AND to be about 3/4 of the way forward, not centered. The lower you go in pitch, the longer the scale for proper intonation, so you want to keep plenty of room to move the lower saddles back.

The first string saddle should be right at the scale length. The lower strings should get progressively longer.

Edited April 1, 2005 by jnewman

[orgmorg]

Most tunamatics are fairly narrow, not much room for intonation adjustment. If you place them right on the scale length, you won't be able to pull the saddles back far enough to get the intonation correct.

[Maiden69]

stew-mac appears to be telling you to make it non-parallel to the neck? Not sure why!

←

It has to be non-parallel for the fact that the scale lenght has little to do with the intonation of the strings. the trebel side will be close to the actual scale (at 25.5) but the bass side depends on the strings you use, I have found out by experience that the thicker the strings the further the intonation saddle will have to go from the actual scale.This guitar is propertly tunned, as you can see my TOM is angled at 3-4 degrees, and the scale is set to be right on the center of the TOM, which I will never do again, next time it will be at the center of the high E string, and I almost run out of place at the 7 string.

You seriously need to stop thinking of guitars af a perfect object and start to get a lot more hands on experience before posting "helpfull" advise. Have you ever intonated a guitar in your life, because it seem not from the posts on Setch's thread and the one that you just posted.

stew-mac appears to be telling you to make it non-parallel to the neck? Not sure why!

I don't know why neither, maybe because they have decades of experience in the guitar industrie and have some of the best luthiers in the world as advisors, not to mention Dan "the luthiers bible" Erlewine.

So get a book, from Dan will be a good source, and instruct your self. Or just did like I and a lot of us have done, do a search ofthe forum, read a lot of tutorials, apply what you have learned to your guitars (if you have any) and then post more sound advise.