I'm working on the code to CNC route my first ever bass body. To help my sanity, I'm going to keep it simple - a Warmouth neck, p-bass pickup and top mounted pots. Machines will do a lot of the work this first time - the body on a CNC router and the pickguard on a waterjet. with everything laid out in SolidWorks.

I've got most everything located where I want it in SolidWorks except the bridge, and this is my question - which part of the bridge am I lining up at 34"? Obviously, to set intonation, I have to stay within the range of adjustment for the bridge, but is there a convenient rule of thumb that I can use? Most of the time the D or G strings have the shortest net length - would they be set at or below scale length on a correctly set up instrument?

Thanks in advance for your input.

Put the saddles as far as you can and at this point you have to measure your 34" mark. CNC and waterjet for a first project?? Ohhh god how much I can envy you right now :D

yea, no kidding

where and how do you go about gaining access to a CNC machine?
are there places where you can have it done for you after you've done the modeling?

Put the saddles as far as you can and at this point you have to measure your 34" mark. :D

Just to be clear - saddles all the way forward (shortest scale length) and set (highest point of saddle?) to 34"? This implies that the actual scale length for E and A is greater than 34" I'll take a look at the mechanics and see if I can understand this. Perhaps I'll machine a jig to set this.

CNC and waterjet for a first project?? Ohhh god how much I can envy you right now :D

Definitely an embarrassment of riches - I work at a well-known technical university on the east coast and I have access to a lot of stuff. One of the shops that falls under my purview has 3 CNC mills - one of them a 5 axis job and 3 CNC lathes. The other shop I use a lot is very (very) well equipped for woodworking and also has a CNC router, mill, lathe and waterjet. All this I can use for $50 a year.

As an old friend told me years ago, you need to measure from the front of the nut to the front edge of the lowest string bridge saddle at 34" or whatever scale. Then move that mark back 1/4" and that should give you adjustability on all the strings.
Have fun with the CNC's!
Dirk

Perhaps I'll machine a jig to set this.

Youll machine a jig for what?

Youll machine a jig for what?

I was thinking a jig to measure from some convenient reference - 12th fret springs to mind - to the top of the saddles.

OTOH, I just noticed that StewMac gives an explicit measurement for the location of screws on some of the bridges they sell. That would make things pretty easy.

What I do is put the saddles at the medium range of their adjustment and measure back from the body side of the nut 34 1/8" .The extra 1/8" is called compensation. It's just as critical to get the side to side placement of the bridge properly as well in order to have the string spacing where you want on the fretboard since most bridges do not allow custom string spacing.

Hi, I have to agree with some of the others on your great fortune of having access to all that hight tech equipment. Good for you! I took notes on my basses when I was going through this process and I found just as you have mentioned, that the G string was the closest to 34" so I set mine so the G string saddle was in the middle of it's adjustment at whatever scale length you are going for, to the string vibrating edge of the nut. That's pretty much where all three of mine are now in game on mode. One of them is a 36" scale and a 5'er. In my limited experience I would say though that you could go 1/8" longer cause I'm closer to running out of adjustment on the B string than the G. In 6 years of playing and 5 different manufacturers of strings I have been OK with the original position. Finding strings with enough winding on the B and E string has been an PITA on my 36".