Sometimes it really pays to have the right tool.  But I get ahead of myself.

Finally got into the shop after a couple weeks of being “under the weather”.  I decided to create a new bridge design for this concert ukulele.  Just another revision of the Martin Belly Bridge but with the “belly” more pronounced and the string pegs contoured to the belly edge.  No doubt done before but new for me.  Mark enjoys low-G so this will also have a compensated saddle.

First was setting the bridge height.  This should be about 1.0~1.5mm lower than the height of the frets from the soundboard.  A long straight-edge made that measurement a snap (7.5mm fret to soundboard at the bridge location).  Cut and dimensioned a nice piece of ebony.  Made it 6mm.

Haven’t cut a slanted saddle slot and all my existing jigs assume a straight saddle for a high-G ukulele.  I wanted the slant to be about 3/16″ from the leading edge for the “A” string and about 5/16″ for the low-“G”, or about a 1/8″ slant across the 27/16″ distance between those strings.  Works out to about 4 degrees.  What to do….

Pulled out my Incra 5000 jig as this setup can be angled in 0.5 deg. increments.  Set the angle for 4 deg and played around with some scrape to get the depth correct (target depth is 4.5mm or 1.5mm remaining under the saddle).  Wow, love this tool.  Depth is 4.35mm and most importantly is the saddle angle is right on the money.  The photo shows the saddle cut and you can just see the silver pencil line along the upper edge of the slot.  Couldn’t be more perfect.  Someday I’ll make a fixed jig for cutting a compensated slot, but not today.

After drilling the holes for the Bridge Pins (5mm for a sst of ebony pins with MoP inlay), a quick trip to the bandsaw shapes the bridge.  A touch of cleanup on the spindle sander finalizes the shape.  Using a “mini-thickness” sander jig on the bench top sander provides a nice scalloped set of sides and “belly”.  This is ready for placement…tomorrow!