A bone nut being back-filed for proper string placement and correct action height.
It wasn’t until I started hanging around Quinn’s Music in the neighboring town of Big Rapids, Michigan, that I started seeing guitars with alternative materials for nuts and saddles, such as the plastic used on Kays and Silvertones. Unfortunately, these materials lacked the firmness of bone, and ultimately did not produce the clear tone I’d become so accustomed to. This is also when I started to encounter acoustic guitars with adjustable saddles, which were mostly mid-’60s Gibsons. Some utilized wood for the adjustable saddles, while others used porcelain, and both materials posed both acceptable but not-so-great alternatives to bone.
A vintage-style “through saddle” on a 1930 Martin OM-18. When made correctly, the saddle height and string break will greatly enhance the overall tone of the instrument.
Over the years, I’ve seen many materials that claimed to be better than bone. But better at what? Because other than pearl, nothing beats bone for tone. Even though there are other compelling material propositions, such as brass and graphite, they all have flaws. Brass, which was popularized in the ’70s, claims to add sustain to notes, but that possible advantage has been debated, and brass is not recommended to be used as a saddle since its weight can potentially have a negative impact on soundboard resonance. Graphite is commonly used by electric players and can help maintain tuning with vibrato use and heavy bending, but it’s far too soft to offer premium tone on an acoustic instrument.
In 1976, I bought a 1969 Martin D-28. After playing it for a bit, I noticed it was lacking in high-end and clarity compared to other guitars I owned, such as my Gibson B-25. I unstrung the guitar, removed the saddle, and was surprised to discover the saddle was pliable and soft, and the nut was made from this same soft material. I took it to my local guitar repairman, Dan Erlewine, who did a great job fabricating and installing a new nut and saddle made from bone. The guitar’s overall tone improved, and the guitar came to life. Once I started repairing guitars, I routinely made and installed bone nuts and saddles to replace plastic or composite materials. As I began specializing in acoustics, I also did plenty of neck sets and fret jobs, which included a bone nut and saddle replacement to round out the repair.
This experience helped me to realize that the most impactful and minimal change you can make to influence tone is a bone nut and saddle upgrade.
This experience helped me to realize that the most impactful and minimal change you can make to influence tone is a bone nut and saddle upgrade. In fact, after finishing the initial evaluation on a customer’s guitar, I would let them know that. However, if a customer is tight for cash, I always told them to “focus on the saddle, as it influences every note on the guitar.” On the other hand, the nut only dictates the tone of the six open notes. Of course, those are pretty darn important notes!
So, to me, a bone nut and saddle upgrade is a fairly low-cost improvement to the overall tone and responsiveness of your guitar. Additionally, a well-made bone nut and saddle will outlast a plastic version tenfold. Both can easily be installed by a qualified technician, and along with a proper setup, it’s still my recommendation as the biggest “bang for your buck” to improve your guitar’s tone and playability.
It’s no secret that the soundboard is the key element for quality tone on an acoustic instrument. However, components attached to the soundboard, such as bridge material, bridge-plate material, and brace stock, will enhance or dampen an instrument’s performance as well. Through the balance of these secondary components, luthiers control the instrument’s voice. So it stands to reason that these items must also be of the highest quality and used correctly for the best possible outcome.
In the coupled system of an acoustic guitar top, the ratio of weight to strength is the result of the combined collaboration of all of its parts. For the style of sound a luthier is shooting for, there is an ideal balance for desired tone and response. The weight or strength is going to be either in the top or the braces, and borne in the bridge or bridge plate.
Let’s say the maker wants to use X-braces and scallop them to recreate a classic, vintage tone. Luthiers have to select an appropriate soundboard to collaborate with the scalloping process—the same goes for other bracing patterns and voicing styles—so they can mold the instrument’s tone for different players to achieve their ideal sound.
Early nylon-string instruments had thinner tops and lighter bracing, since they could accommodate the lower tension of nylon strings. These instruments used a pinless bridge, and their bridge plates were most commonly made of spruce and were fairly small. Once higher-tension steel strings were introduced, this meant soundboards had to be thicker, bracing had to be beefed up, and bracing patterns moved from fan bracing to the modern-X style. Additionally, bridge-plate materials shifted to harder woods, such as maple or rosewood, to accommodate the pinned-style bridges that anchor the ball ends to the bridge plate (Photo 1).
Somewhere between 1920 and 1945, steel string guitar makers hit their ideal stride by balancing top thickness, brace voicing, the bridge, and bridge-plate size to form the tone of some of the world’s most iconic instruments. By the early 1960s, the popularity of steel-string guitars grew exponentially due to the folk-music boom. In an attempt to keep up with the high demand, however, material quality was compromised as manufacturers started using weaker, heavier tops.
Soundboard failures soon followed, so bracing and bridge-plate sizes were then increased in an attempt to stabilize the lower-quality soundboards. But because the overall weight of the tops increased and stiffness decreased, these moves compromised the instruments’ stability and lowered the quality of the tone and response.
Bridge-plate sizes, for example, shifted from small, vintage-style footprints and thinner profiles to a footprint that was twice the size and double the thickness. By the 1970s, some makers moved to plywood bridge plates in an attempt to remedy some instruments’ structural issues. Unfortunately, the addition of a large, thick bridge plate to make up for poor material choices was an ill-advised move. It only dampened the instruments’ performance as they continued to routinely fail.
Photo 2
When tuned to pitch and operating correctly, a bridge pin’s job is to hold the ball end in place under the bridge plate. When it’s not operating correctly, the ball end is allowed to sink into the bridge plate (Photo 2), which will distort the bridge pin and cause a number of woes, such as tuning issues and tonal distortion. Not surprisingly, when lower-quality bridge-plate materials were introduced, we started seeing an increase in this type of failure, which eventually needs repair or replacement. It’s a very advanced repair, and if not performed correctly it can severely damage a guitar’s soundboard.
Fortunately, our industry has revisited the quality craftsmanship that produced those iconic vintage guitars, spearheaded in part by luthiers such as Bill Collings, who practiced time-tested building approaches using quality materials. This allows luthiers to once again focus on smaller, lighter components that significantly increase an instrument’s response, as they are significantly better positioned to withstand string tension and humidity fluctuations. From a repairperson’s standpoint, focusing on the maintenance of high-quality, great-sounding guitars is much more rewarding work than major restorations to stabilize failing instruments.