Bone saddles and nuts were fabricated for the ukuleles and installed. The saddle was adjusted for 5/32" string height at the 12th fret. The bone nuts and saddles were trimmed and polished. The ukuleles were strung up with Aquila strings and were brought up 2 steps down from normal pitch. It will take a couple days for them to settle out. They sound good so far. The ukuleles were tuned to full pitch. The additional string tension produced good volume and sustain with a bright sound. The sound gets better everyday. Well, I thought all was well with the ukuleles. I discovered the string holes on the bridge were spaced too far apart forcing the 1st and 4th strings to angle to the edge of the fretboard. The ukuleles would be ok if one only played in the "first" position (first 3 frets), but a real problem playing notes and chords up the neck. I figured out some options, none very appealing, that would fix the problem: 1. Replace bridge, 2. Plug all holes and re-drill string holes 3. Convert to a pin bridge. After thinking about the issue for a couple of days, I decided to go with the pin bridge option. I examined the pin bridge on my old Martin tenor ukulele and determined there was enough width on the concert ukuleles for a pin bridge. The string holes were plugged with rosewood dowels, refinished, new holes drilled and reamed for bone bridge pins. The string issue was solved with the converted bridge.The bone bridge pins with an abalone dot add a touch of elegance to the ukuleles.
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