Bone Saddle - Fits Some Post-2009 Taylor® Guitars - Wave Style Compensation - 9 mm Height

Bought this for a Baby Taylor guitar that needed a tone boost. The stock saddle is a plastic type material that meets expectations for a moderately low priced guitar. The replacement bone saddle from MacNichol Guitars only needed slight sanding on the sides, and then it fit perfect in the existing bridge slot. The Baby Taylor sounds richer and more like a larger guitar without all the pluckiness it had before. Very nice and easy upgrade for the money!

This bone saddle was a pretty close fit when it arrived for my 2017 Taylor 214ce DLX compared to the factory installed wave compensated Tusq saddle. I'm not a luthier but have played for almost 50 years. I wanted to drop the low E at the 12th fret from .09375 to .080 because I am playing more jazz these days. My other acoustic guitars are a 1970 Martin D35 and 2001 Taylor 814ce with really nice action. I went slowly because you can always take more off but you can't put it back. I sanded each side evenly to maintain the centerline with 150 grit sand paper taped to a flat surface, checking regularly with dial calipers to get the same width as the factory saddle. I had taken measurements of the factory saddle along the six points where the strings break over the saddle and frequently checked my progress on the width of the new saddle at each of the same six points. When I got the width to be the same as the factory saddle, I installed it in the bridge to make sure that it fit properly. It was snug but slid in and out without much difficulty. I then sanded the bottom of the bone saddle in a vice using rubber gasket material to protect the saddle from the metal vice edges, taking care to maintain a square bottom which is important for vibration to transfer to the sound box and also presumably for the E2 pickup. I went slowly and took measurements of my gradual progress with dial calipers every 20 or 30 passes until I reached my target. I used a piece of 150 grit sand paper taped to the bottom of a flat piece of wood to help ensure that I was sanding square. I also checked regularly to make sure that the amount I reduced when measured on each end was the same. Also, along the way, I installed the bone saddle and re-strung the guitar three times to check incremental progress. In particular, when I reached .008 inches from my target, I stopped and reinstalled the saddle to make sure I had not gone too far. I'm glad I stopped short of my total target for reduction because the action was exactly where I wanted. The action is now .080 at the low E and 12th fret, and .060 at the high e, 12th fret with the recommended Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze .12's. I had previously searched the Internet and found a 2013 specification sheet showing this is still within Taylor's production specifications for a grand auditorium. I used a Stewart MacDonald string height gauge. No truss rod adjustment was necessary afterwards to avoid buzzing. Lowering the saddle sacrificed some of the volume at the low end but it is not bad and is so much easier to play now. And I still preserved the factory one anytime I want to bring the action back to .09375. I'm very pleased with this new bone saddle. Sorry this review is so long but I wanted to provide as much detail of the process as possible to help anyone else who might try to do this succeed.

But after spending for a v-braced 314ce (probably the cheapest v-braced Taylor...) I guess I shouldn't complain about the relatively inexpensive bone saddle...And it was worth it! For one thing it allowed me to keep the original saddle without ruining it by my working on it LOL. Anyway I wanted a bit lower action, so I meticulously and carefully measured the original and then filed/sanded the new bone saddle until its height was about .015" less than the original saddle, lowering it not quite as much for the top E string, and loosened the truss rod just a bit so there's no string buzz. The length of this bone saddle was perfect - no filing/sanding was necessary. But the thickness was just a bit too thick to fit into the bridge without forcing it - several minutes sanding took care of that easily.I've done this before just as an amateur on quite a few acoustic guitars but I did it extra carefully on this one not really wanting to have to spend another $15 for another bone saddle if I ruined this one. I'm happy with the sound and playability even more than I was before - a successful outcome always cheers me up!

Picked up a new Taylor 714ce which is awesome, but I prefer the action slightly lower. Purchased the replacement saddle so that I could leave the original as is and retain the ability to go back to it if needed. The replacement saddle looks absolutely identical in every way to the original saddle that came with my new Taylor. (mark them so that you can tell which is which) I sanded about 1mm off the bottom of the new saddle and gave it a try. The action feels perfect to me now. No change in tone that I can hear and the intonation is still dead on. Highly recommend.

Easy to install very little sanding required….

Fit my 1999 Taylor 414CE with only minor thinning. Had to adjust for action height, of course. Was twice the height it needed to be. Works well. Intonation is solid. Sounds fine. Noticeably more high end sparkle in the treble strings.

The saddle fit perfect on my big baby Taylor. I just had to sand a millimeter off the bottom for the string height. Perfect. Oh yeah, and the sandpaper is nice that it came with.

You may think $20 for saddle is expensive, yet for the sound you get and quality of products you receive, it is not. Especially for the improvement of the sound you get out of this. Perhaps, you may need to file slightly to adjust thickness, it would be minimal sanding. If you ask a luthier to make bone saddle, it will be so much more expensive and takes so much time. It seems that, the shop makes sure the quality of the bone before they make saddle, don't worry about density of bones and stuff. Plus their customer care is amazing, I felt warmth through their care, not only by words, but they took extra-mile of action. These people's hands are constructing the saddle, quality is granted.