Temporary tailpiece

[Roger Häggström]

Man, one week and no posts?

When I do my nut intonation I need a temporary tailpiece to be able to move the intonation point on the bridge using drills with the right diameter matching the 12th fret string height. Made this adjustable one, it can be adjusted for the smallest parlor or biggest archtop guitar.

A couple of aluminum plates, a piece of wood, a plate angle and welding tape to protect the guitar. Very stable. A loose PVC plate and the strap protects the guitar from the clamps.

[Keith Somerville]

Cool! I'd like to see more of these things on the forum. My usual trick is to improvise a solution and think to myself, "Oh, I should really get round to making a tool or jig for that" and then I never do.

[Roger Häggström]

I do, I do, I do (to quote Abba!) :-)

[Murray MacLeod]

Initially, I thought why not  just attach the tailpiece temporarily by looping it round the endpin?

[Roger Häggström]

I work with a lot of different guitars, small parlors, big parlors, dreadnoughts, super big archtops or 12 string guitars, nylon strung guitars and what have you. Not all of them have an endpin to start with and the ones that have one don't have it in the same place. This tailpiece jig was simple to do and fits all of them.

[Murray MacLeod]

Excellent.

How do you cope with different string spacings ... they can vary from 2 1/8" to 2 3/8" at the saddle. Do you have different tailpieces  to suit different spacings, or do you cram spacers behind the saddle in between the strings to achieve the correct overall spacing ?

[Roger Häggström]

I ignore the string spacing. I'm only interested in the distance to the saddle's intonation point from my zero point (origin) behind the first fret. I will use that measure and put the mark on the right place (for the string spacing) when actually doing the routing for the saddle ditch.