Tilted saddle

[Johan]

Hi!

In order to get rid of the shims in the saddle slots on two of my Avalons I am about to replace the existing saddles with
new and higher ones, kindly provided by Steve McIlwrath along with my Eclipse.

Upon close inspection I noticed that the saddles seem to be slightly tilted backwards and an obvious question is of course why this is?

A more important question for me in order to get things right however is for me to understand how this is accomplished.
The old saddle seems to have a bottom that is not at right angles with its sides (I have to use the word "seems"
since my eyes are not as sharp as they used to be) and it fits quite losely in its slot; is this how the tilt is accomplished?
Or is the slot itself not your ordinary flat bottom, right angle, straight up slot?

The reason I am asking is that my replacement pieces seem to be right angled and I need to sand the bottoms a bit to
get the right string height and the question is whether to sand at an angle or not and if so what angle?
I do want a good and tight contact between the the bottom of the saddle and the bottom of the slot.

Please do not tell me that this tilting thing is just a figment of my imagination ; it is difficult to use a square
on these small objects to check if ones eyes are telling the truth.

Now for something completely different! I wonder if you could tell me when my guitars where made?
The A12 is L-000546 and the A32 is L-000404. Do you use a different numbering scheme for each model?
Well that is all for now I guess.

Cheers from Sweden, Johan

[rocksteady]

Good question. Are the saddles tilted? I just got finished remaking saddles for my guitars and I did not do this. they seem to tilt natually toward the end of the strings.

Mine sound good though

[JB]

Yup, the saddle slots are tilted backwards but the bottom of the slot still maintains a 90 deg angle to the slot sides.
This angle gives a better contact to the string which is naturally pulling forward into the saddle which inturn is better for applying pressure through the saddle into the transducer if fitted.

Hope I explained that clearly

[rocksteady]

If I undewrstand correctly, The saddle bottom itself is not angled, but the saddle slots are angled, but everything is still at 90 degrees in reference to the sides of the saddle slot and the saddle. Correct?

[JB]

The whole saddle slot is angled so the sides and bottom maintain a 90deg angle to each other, this ensures the flat of the saddle lies perfectly flat against the bottom of the slot and pickup if fitted.

[Johan]

Thanks for clearifying this issue.
-Johan