Intonation On A Bone Bridged Hamer Semi-hollow

[Stew]

A friend gave me his Hamer XT series DuoTone (semi-hollow electric/acoustic). It's a short scale set neck guitar. It's got some problems. First, the intonation is horrible. Action is not too bad, a little hard to chord above 4th fret and major string buzz when playing C note on the 5th string. I'm thinking the fret must be a little high at the 5th fret since it's slight at C# on the same string, and no buzz on D.

Problem is how do you do an intonation setup on this guitar? The bridge is one straight bone bar with no compansation. Do you intonate by manipulating the truss rod? Tightening will make the buzz worse, in fact fret out completely, and loosening will raise the action possibly eliminating the fret buzz. What's the compromise? Also I just installed new strings (.010 - .046 Elixer Polyweb lite).

What do I do?

Edited July 5, 2005 by Stew

[rocksolid]

well first of all you do not adjust intonation by adjusting the truss rod, to fix your buzzing problem i suggest you check the neck for backbow or relief, those might be causing your buzzing problem and are the only reason to adjust your trussrod, but i'm not really sure what to do with your intonation problem

[Stew]

I totally agree about the truss rod. But I just can't figure out how to adjust the intonation on this thing. I mean, the bridge is just like an acoustic guitar. It's a glued in rosewood base with a bone bar saddle. With a wooden instrument that is subject to weather changes, how do you normally keep an acoustic guitar intonated? Is it string gauge dependant?

Maybe I'll see if Hamer has something on their website. Thanks for chiming in.

[stageleft]

The quick answer is...you don't. It can never be better than pretty close. If the factory screwed up the placement of the bridge, nothing short of moving it will help. There are somewhat compensated saddles available like this:

WD

George

[Mr Alex]

costly and time consuming: get a stewmac intonator, and make a new saddle with it.

If you have some tools, make your own intonator(I saw a tutorial once), but the saddle slot probably isn't wide enough for a compensated saddle, and it will probably not yeild a result you hoped for(asthetically).

also the strings you just put on are probably the problem too.

[Stew]

I'm wondering if there would be a problem with removing the saddle since I'm guessing there is a ribbon piezo pickup inderneath? Could the Stew Mac comp saddle work with the existing piezo pickup? BTW, it's a string through body so there are no string pins.

Yeah I think all I can do with this one is maybe swap out the .010's for .009's, and file down the high #6 fret on the bass side.

Edited July 6, 2005 by Stew

[thedoctor]

Hamer is not famous for making big mistakes but they could have. I would not even worry about the intonation until you have straightedged the neck to see where you are and determined the "buzzing" and playability problem's source. With just enough relief to make it playable and reasonably "buzz" free, your intonation may come pretty close to right. Maybe not perfect but closer. Attack the action first and then go for an intonation critique. Gotta check 3rd fret string clearance to see if the nut is too high or low, 12th to 15th fret to see if the trussrod or the bridge needs to be set and recheck with the straightedge to see if fretwork is called for(it isn't). First things first, or as my father said, "it doesn't do any good to wipe your nose before you sneeze".

[Stew]

Hamer is not famous for making big mistakes but they could have.

Well this is Korean made so I'm not too sure about the quality. Doesn't seem to be on the same level as the American versions I've seen.

[Myka Guitars]

Problem is how do you do an intonation setup on this guitar? The bridge is one straight bone bar with no compansation.

←

Compensate it. You don't need more than a tuner to do this, just like a tune-o-matic except in this instance you use a file instead of a screwdriver. File it just the way you would adjust it if it had a screw. And yes, any saddle will work with a transducer as long as it is properly fitted (even pressure along the piezo element, correct curvature, etc). You might have better success getting a new peice of bone for the saddle and starting over. This way you can adjust the compensation and then adjust the height. Depends on how the one you have fits now.

[unclej]

Problem is how do you do an intonation setup on this guitar? The bridge is one straight bone bar with no compansation.

←

Compensate it. You don't need more than a tuner to do this, just like a tune-o-matic except in this instance you use a file instead of a screwdriver. File it just the way you would adjust it if it had a screw. And yes, any saddle will work with a transducer as long as it is properly fitted (even pressure along the piezo element, correct curvature, etc). You might have better success getting a new peice of bone for the saddle and starting over. This way you can adjust the compensation and then adjust the height. Depends on how the one you have fits now.

←

well, you got my attention on this answer. if i read his question right he has a wooden bridge with a bone saddle. can you change the break point of the string enough with a file to make an appreciable difference in compensation? i'd love to hear more about your technique.

edited to say: i thought about this some more after i posted and realized you were probably talking about making a regular compensated saddle with the e breaking on the high side and the b on the low. if there's more to your technique i was serious about wanting to hear more..

[Myka Guitars]

can you change the break point of the string enough with a file to make an appreciable difference in compensation?

←

Sure. If you have a 1/8" bone saddle then you have 1/8" of room to compensate. If the angle of the saddle is correct that is plenty of room for a good range of string gauges (like .009s to .011s (you intonate for one gauge only)). There is no secret technique. It is nothing more than what you would do if you built a saddle from scratch. If you want to move the break point back you file off from the front and vice versa. Check out Frets.com for some ideas on how to design a good saddle.

[Stew]

Here's a visual for you.

Seems too narrow to be doing any filing. He barely plays this so there's hardly any wear on the thing.

[stageleft]

I found the perfect answer for you. I honestly didn't know anything like this existed, I found it while looking for something else. (isn't that always the way?)

WD grandaddy

George

[Myka Guitars]

Stay away from those tune-o-matics for acoustic guitars. They suck tone big time.

Stew, how far out is the intonation? Is it past the range that you could adjust it with the current saddle? You might want to replace it with a wider one. What are the readings you get for each string?

[Stew]

Hey guess what? It was the tuners! After filing down the high frets, I restrung and heard some rattling at the head stock. I thought "it's the tuners". So after spending some time taking out the slack from the strings so that it would stay in tune, I investigated the rattle. It was the washers between the pegface and hex nut. So I tightened each nut until snug.

I double checked the tuning and found that now everything was sharp and I had not touched the strings at all while tightening. So I started checking the intonation and now most of all the strings were perfectly intonated after I retuned. The G and B string were showing a little sharp so I slightly loosened the hex nut, retuned everything and checked the intonation. The G & B were now closer to perfect intonation. It's still slightly out but it's very close to dead on without having a loose hex nut on the tuner.

So, one last tuning, and the G and B still sounded slightly out when chording. I realized the neck had a fair amount of relief so I flattened the neck by tightening up the truss rod a bit. Turns out with the higher action, I was pressing harder and making certain strings out of tune. With the neck flatter, I used less pressure to chord and now sounds perfect, open chords, barre chords in all positions, in all octaves all the way past 12th fret.

Is this normal? I would have never thought about the tuners being used for intonation purposes. I'm not sure if they are original tuners but there is a large script "S" (I'm assuming Schaller) and the words, "Made in Germany" on the back casing.

I can't believe this worked.

[Myka Guitars]

Cool, you tracked it down! It is normal for the tuners to affect the intonation if they are loose. But it is definitely not normal to loosen the tuners as a way to intonate the guitar. I would recommend tightening them all so they will not loosen more over time like they did in the first place. Then correct the B and G by compensating the saddle. This way you would also have long term stability instead of a short term fix.

EDIT: Those marking do indicate Schallers. If they are installed correctly and show no signs of wear you should be fine with these. They are generally very good quality tuners.

Edited July 10, 2005 by Myka Guitars

[Stew]

As far the B and G string, I'll check to see if there's still some slack that's causing it to slip out of tune or if it's getting caught in the nut. I mean this is a Korean made Hamer. In my experience most Korean made guitars are not quite up to par on setups. I just want to make sure it's not something else before I start permanently changing the bridge. If it's just slack and my intonation is dead on, the altering the bridge will throw it out again, right? I'll check everything out again today since it's sat overnight to get things settled.

I've used pencil graphite before for the nut slots. Is this a myth or does anyone out there use something that's an improvement over graphite?

Thanks for all your help.

[Stew]

The Kaman Corp contacted me a few days ago saying that they would send me a compansating bridge for the guitar, free of charge. Since they no longer make the DuoTone guitar, they have a bunch of comp bridges just sitting around. They said they made the bridge because so many complained about the G & B sting intonation problem.

Well, there you go.

[stageleft]

Gotta love that kind of customer service. Let us know what its like and how it works when you get it.

George

[Stew]

Ok so now how do I repair this badboy? I've never replaced an acoustic bridge before. This must have some sort of transducer underneath. What should I do to be careful not to break the piezo transducer? Are these glued in? How do I loosen the glue? I really don't have specialized one use Stew Mac stuff for this. I'm mainly a solid body guitar fix guy.

Edited July 19, 2005 by Stew

[marksound]

Did they say they were sending the whole bridge? They're probably sending a compensated saddle (similar to the third one down). The saddle just sits in the slot in the bridge. It should lift right out.

[Stew]

Thanks marksound, it is just the saddle, not the entire rosewood mounting block. I don't have the guitar in front of me so I'll need to get the guitar back to continue working on the guitar.

It would be great if this solves the problem.

Edited later:

Works perfectly, all the way up the neck and open chords. Thanks for all who helped.

- Stew

Edited July 20, 2005 by Stew

[b5111987]

check this out for an idea

it probably carnt be used on your but for a new guitar being built i think it has potential to work

www.freewebs.com/guitarbridge