Intonating Epiphone '58 LPC, not enough saddle travel ?

[DeafDumbBlind Kid]

I was all set to come on here and ask if the bridge posts were too far forward to allow for sufficient travel to intonate the guitar. I had a devil of a time trying to intonate it yesterday. Finally I had to put the guitar down and stop for the day.

Today I picked up the guitar, tuned it up and checked the intonation. All the strings are sharp at the 12th fret. The plain unwound strings are all maxed against the back (stoptail) side. I was wondering yesterday if I had a bridge post placement issue yesterday. Today I tuned as best I could, then checked every fret. Every note was sharp.

Would I be correct to assume the issue is more with the nut than the bridge? If it's too high, it seems to me as that would cause fretted notes to be sharp, yes?

While nut work isn't easy, it has to be easier than moving a bridge post.

 

[lowatter]

Are you certain that the TOM bridge isn't backwards? Pics would really help.

 

[LtDave32]

The old adage when checking fretted note against harmonic is "sharp -get back!" like someone's got a knife on you.

Silly, but you'll never forget it, now that I said it.

So, since we've determined the saddles need to go further back, can we ask if the bridge posts are leaning forward?

And as asked above, is the TOM turned around?

If not, can you turn the saddles backward for a bit more travel?



And yes, nut work is not easy to do right. But... It's unlikely that the bridge posts were installed too far forward, as all that stuff is done the same way on a jig for the one before it, the one after it, the one before the one before, etc etc.

So we may have to visit that nut situation. -maybe. Let's see where we are now.

Take a tape measure and run it from the face of the nut to the center of the TOM bridge. Let's check the scale and see whassup. You should be getting 24 9/16" or 24 5/8" = 24.562 and 24.625, respectively.

In the middle of the bridge, say the D and G strings, the tape measurement should end in the middle of that.

-We're just checking ballpark figures here, eliminating some of the fuss.

 

[lowatter]

Are the saddle adjustment screws pointing towards the pickup or the strap button? They shoould point towards the pickup if I'm not mistaken.

 

[LtDave32]

 

[DeafDumbBlind Kid]

Are the saddle adjustment screws pointing towards the pickup or the strap button? They shoould point towards the pickup if I'm not mistaken.

they point toward the pickup as is correct for Gibson.