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Hey, guys. I was hoping you might be able to give me some advice on a Simon & Patrick dreadnought. The guitar belongs to a buddy of mine who was complaining of intonation issues. I agreed to take a look at it. I’ve only built a couple of guitars from scratch. I promised I wouldn’t do anything I wasn’t confident doing.

I’ve slowly been assessing what the issue(s) might be. All strings were about 15+ cents sharp at the 12th fret compared to the open string. The first thing I noticed was that the strings had buried themselves into the Tusq(?) saddle, changing the break point. Then I noticed the saddle was actually in reversed! I flipped it, but this only helped marginally due to the aforementioned problem. I figured I’d make a new bone nut and saddle. No biggie and it’s good experience for me.

Next I noticed that the string ball ends were really pulling themselves up into the plastic bridge pins. Those things should be outlawed! What the heck? My first question, I suppose, is should I replace the bridge pins with slotted bone pins to more or less match what it currently has or should I try to find some unslotted pins and slot the bridge? Unslotted pins is what I would use if I were building the guitar from scratch. A quick picture of the bridge plate didn’t show much wear, but I’m wondering if that’s because the plastic pins were so soft, they took the brunt of the damage. Would replacing them with unslotted bone cause damage to the soundboard area in the pin hole?

The action was playable, but not entirely desirable. The bridge is a mere 1/4” thick and 1/8” of saddle sticking up out of the bridge (center). Lowering the action at the saddle doesn’t really seem like an option. A straight edge placed on the frets hits the bridge about .030” BELOW the top of the bridge. It’s been a while since I’ve done this, but that’s LOW if I remember correctly. I’m not really in the mood to reset a neck, but if I were going to, any ideas on the type of joint that S&P uses?

There is some fret wear, along with some uneven frets. I’d like to level the fret plane and redress the frets. Given the neck angle and bridge/saddle height, am I asking for trouble by lowering the height of the frets by leveling them?

I’m sure there are some questions within those questions that I’ll need to consider, but based on that info, what advice might you have for me?

Thanks, all!

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sweat the small stuff.

I'm 99% sure they use a bolt on neck. They hide the bolts behind the sticker.

Thanks, Conor!

I’m reading now in some places that they use epoxy, as well.

One more thing I forgot to mention is that the guitar is about 17+ years old. Not sure how much the neck design, etc. has changed over the years.

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sweat the small stuff.

As Connor said, it is almost certain to be two bolts behind the sticker, like all the Godin-owned brands. The ones I’ve disassembled had PVA on the FB extension, nothing on the heel itself. Slight changes in neck angle (VERY common in these guitars) can usually be done by flossing the heel, without releasing the FB from the top.


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I believe Simon and Patrick are associated with Seagull (same family maybe), Seagulls do have bolt on necks and it is very common for them to have loose bolts, which dramatically changes the neck angle. Tightening the bolts may help yours, if not it is a fairly simple matter to pull the neck and actually reset it.

As far as the frets, you have to make the call whether to dress what you have or pull and replace them. Anything less than perfect frets compromises the setup.

A bridge height of 1/4 inch is quite low, most acoustics are closer to 3/8 with a saddle depth of about 1/4. Has it been shaved? If so it should be replaced. 1/8 inch of saddle out of the bridge is about right, but then you only have about 1/8 in the slot - that is potentially weak.

What is you big problem with plastic pins? Lots of guitars, including Martin, ship with them - I'll admit that I like to put bone in mine but if they are fit correctly I don't see anything wrong with plastic.

Good to know! Thanks!

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sweat the small stuff.

It’s funny how I thought I was just going to make a new nut and saddle and figured he’d be happy; and, truthfully he would be. But, as you pointed out, anything less than perfect just isn’t acceptable to ME. I’m not a professional and I don’t really intend to be anytime soon, but that doesn’t change my standards. Thanks for all of the info. I really do appreciate it.

Yeah, the bridge is super low. That was one of the first things I noticed. I asked and as far as he knows there has not been any work done to the guitar. I asked because I was trying to figure out how the pre-made saddle got put in backwards.

As far as the plastic pins, I wouldn’t really care about what someone else puts on their factory made guitar, but they were all pretty badly misshapen from the ball end pulling up into the pin. I don’t know if that’s common or not. My understanding is that best* practice is for the ball end to seat against the bridge plate with an unslotted pin. It’s probably a little more complicated than that, but that’s my view.

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sweat the small stuff.

It is important to keep in mind that this guitar started its life as a roughly $500 new guitar, mass produced, using better than average woods for that price range, but not a huge amount of individual tweaking at the factory. So, it probably will benefit from some tweaking now.

If your friend is on board, it sounds like a quickie neck reset would be good. By that I mean: undo the neck bolts, leave the fingerboard extension glued down, and carefully sand the heel (via flossing) to tilt the neck angle just enough. This avoids the mess of a full neck removal.

Once you have the neck tilt solved, you can adjust the truss rod, dress the frets, cut a decent nut and saddle, and get everything dialed in to make the guitar play well.

On the string holes/pins: If you are comfortable slotting the bridge for the strings, and you clear it with your friend, I would do it. You can use either slotted or unslotted pins at that point. If slotted, just turn them around so the slots are in the back. Guitars work better if the string balls and the strings stay out of the string holes. Only the pins should be in the holes. Lots of factory guitars would benefit from that little adjustment. But get your friend on board first.

Show us a pic of that bridge!

Every day I walk into work and have stuff piled up waiting for me to do that came in after I left the prior day. I don't know the stories behind these and although useful at times, not always.... it really doesn't matter.

Instead I have the repair order form that may say "set-up" and nothing more.

A quick inspection which we call triage looking at the neck, neck angle, bridge, inside in the pin area and the heel to body joint and I usually know what I'm going to do to the thing after I call the owner and tell him that I'm upping his estimate having found issues beyond a simple set-up.

I read the first post here from Heath so please forgive any redundancy I'm giving you a slice of my life and my approach to one of these.

It does not matter to me so much what the history is nor any of the mysteries that folks can get mired down with and distracted from getting the thing done, next. Instead I launch and this is how I might launch with this one. I'm looking to have at least three of these done before I eat my bean burrito.

1). Looking at the neck heel and body joint for any gap. If there is a gap I use an eye dropper after lifting a corner of the label hiding the neck bolts to drip naphtha under the labels corner. Then carefully though the sound hole I drip and work, drip and work.... the label off in one piece.

2). Next I snug up the neck bolts, these are indeed bolt ons. Inspecting the neck angle after snugging the bolts tells me if I have enough saddle to work with.

3). Since this is a save.... of the instrument certain practices are appropriate for it that would not be appropriate for a more valuable instrument. If it looks like I will have just enough saddle once it's where I want it but poor break angle I make a mental note that Im going to file in some string ramps on the bridge improving break angle over the saddle.

4). You hear me speak a lot of nut slots. Most new guitars have never had their nut slots cut well and professionally. When done well and very low many player issues such as intonation issues and pulling notes sharp in the first frets area go away. Perhaps just as important well cut nut slots can also lower action considerably..... All these things in combination often get us to where we need to go. Anyway cutting the nut slots is on the list.

5). With the neck snugged back into it's OEM position and the angle improved I clean up the thing since I have to touch it.... including shining up the frets, conditioning the board and bridge and a nice polish. Tuners are serviced, the white washers that always split on these and fall off are often replaced as need be too. The label is reinstalled and fresh pick guard adhesive is applied to the back if it's lost it's tack.

6). My sequence is to restring, tune to pitch and adjust the truss rod. Next I cut the nut slots low and easy to play, very low and very easy to play.... Now I measure the action at the 12th and I'm looking for on this guitar 4/64" for the high e at the 12th and <6/64th" for the low e at the 12th with 12's on it.

7). Now lets back up before I forget. You mentioned that the string balls are pulling up into the pins. I'd make a bridge plate cap for it and cap the bridge plate. It's usually maple for mine, .060" thick, beveled edges and just barely larger foot print than the pin hole area. Very minimalistic and only weighs a gram or so. This is also why I would have called the client and upped the quote, it's beyond the scope of a simple set-up and represents value so I want to be compensated.

8). Cap in place, thing strung up I note action at the 12th with the goals mentioned in mind. If the saddle needs to come down that's what we do. If it can't come down any more but needs to I reexamine the neck relief and see if I can milk any more straightness out of the neck and lower the action that way although this is not ideal but can help.

Lastly sometimes we can't get these in spec when they might need say a neck reset but that's not in the future for this one. But if we can get close that's often good enough and even more often a huge.... improvement and folks will be thrilled.

BTW these have very low bridges, I doubt that it's been shaved. We avoid shaving bridges unless the thing has a higher than necessary bridge to begin with and it needs the neck angle improved and it's not a valuable instrument.

Hope something here helps.

It’s quite low.

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sweat the small stuff.

By adding string slots you should be able to lower the saddle some and still have some break angle. I would figure out how much doing what Hesh mentioned will get you, and if you still don't think it will be enough, opt for a neck reset. One of the main selling points of bolt on necks is the relative ease of doing resets.

Thanks for such a detailed response, Hesh! (Funny aside - when I try to type Hesh into my phone, it auto-corrects to Heath).

I can feel things coming better into focus. For most of the items listed above, it’s not that I don’t know how to do them, it’s just a matter of if I should and when. So thanks for the help in diagnosing and a general sense of the order of operation.

There is no gap at the neck/body junction. So I think I’m good there. For now*, I think I’ll live with the neck angle. I may change my mind on that later. We’ll see.

In regards to the bridge pins, my original diagnosis may have been a bit hasty. Re-stringing the guitar and verifying with photos and by feel inside of the sound hole, I can tell that the pins are indeed seated against the bridge plate. The pins are a bit eaten up though. I guess just because they’re plastic and they have a metal ball being pulled so tightly against them. The pins are, at least in my book, pretty ill fitting inside of the holes. Definitely a bit of slop.

There is one more thing that I’ve noticed that I suspect may have been part of the original intonation issues. I’ve measured the distance between all frets 1-12 (with a dial caliper spanning the frets and then subtracting the fret width) and they’re all pretty consistent (within .001-.005”) of what I suspect is the scale length of 24.84” (S&P website and Stew Mac fret calc). However, the distance from nut end of the fretboard to first fret is easily .015” too LONG. If anything it should be like .015” too SHORT, right? I was considering using my small LN shoulder plane, which just fits, and shortening the nut end of the fretboard. Thoughts? I would, of course, clear this with the owner first.

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sweat the small stuff.

Dumb question, were the strings measuring 15 cents sharp very old? Have you tried changing to new strings and re-measuring the intonation? I've found that making that one change can often bring the intonation back into the realm of passable.

Heath, there has been a lot of interest lately in methods to refine compensation by moving the first couple of frets, moving the nut, compensating the nut as well as the saddle, moving various frets around. I haven't tried any of them but have been tempted to at least move the nut and split the compensation between the nut and the saddle. You would have a good opportunity to try that however if you do move the nut you will probably end up making a new one and may have to also make a new saddle.

Not a dumb question at all.

The guitar came to me with new strings. Yours was my first question to the owner, as well.

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sweat the small stuff.

Looking at the picture of the bridge and saddle it looks like it is about 3/8ths inch tall (combined). That is at the low end for good sound production on most guitars. If the action is high at the twelfth fret I would raise the saddle to bring the strings 7/16ths inch above the soundboard, and then reset the neck to get a decent low to medium action. The advantage of a bolt on style neck is that this is relatively easy to do. With glued in necks all the "work arounds" ( shaving bridges, extra long string slots, slipping end blocks, milling fret boards, etc.) are done because a proper reset is difficult to do. They can make the guitar playable, but often at the expense of its sound or structure.

The Godin manufacturing facilities are here in Québec, about 90 minutes drive from my shop. It comes as no surprise that I see a lot of their instruments on my bench.

Godin currently make Simon & Patrick, Norman, Art & Lutherie and Seagull brand steel strings, as well as La Patrie classicals. Regardless of brand or price, they're all pretty similar. None of these brands are high-end, but they are good value, even against Asian competition, and individual instruments can sound rather good. Because of the lower retail value, one needs to keep set up and repair costs down.

To confirm a few things:
1. Yes, they have low bridges
2. They use a bolt-on neck, with glued FB extension.
3. High action is pretty common and there is only so far one wants to lower the saddle (BTW, the saddle in that picture doesn't look original or has been filed by someone trying to intonate).
4. One can correct up to 1.5 mm excessive string height at the 12th fret pretty easily by flossing the heel. I charge as much to treat one of these as I do to swap shims in a Taylor. About the same amount of time.

It's worth making a calculation to see where you're at. I'll give you an example, in metric (measurements are approximate, for illustration):
Distance body fret to saddle = 282 mm
Distance bottom of fingerboard to heel cap = 89 mm
Action at 12th fret needs to lower 1.25 mm (equivalent to 2.5 mm at the saddle)

Amount to remove at heel cap = (89*1.25*2)/282
= 0.79 mm

There are discussions on the forum about flossing. I recommend a cloth-backed abrasive, as paper tends to break. I would floss maybe up to a mm, after that I'd likely release the FB, but that doubles the cost of the work, so I try to avoid it. Don't stress the FB extension too much, or it will separate from the top (ask how I know!).

Your original complaint was about intonation, but I suspect your measurements could be more precise and that the intonation issues are anyway exacerbated by excessive string height. Personally, I would take fret measurements relative to the nut, to the centre of the fret using a high quality steel rule. I wouldn't bother pursing the intonation issue until the string height is where it should be.

Hope some of that helps.

Clay, this makes good sense to me. I’m still mulling whether the neck angle should be tweaked or not. To me, it makes sense to raise the string height over the soundboard, but I’m not positive I would do it for this guitar. The action at the 12th was fair. I have the strings off of it right now and didn’t previously measure the height. I’m new to diagnosing guitars for repair, so I didn’t make all of the pertinent measurements initially. I’ll have to re-string it and get a better idea. Though the customer didn’t complain about the action. Only the intonation. I know for sure that lowering the nut height when I make a new nut will greatly improve playablility, even if I leave the 12 fret action more or less alone. It will just have a pretty low string height over the soundboard.

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sweat the small stuff.

Tim, thank you for another detailed response. I’ll have to take your word for the math on getting the neck angle right. I was having a hard time figuring why the algorithm you used would yield those numbers. It’s also difficult to picture removing up to a millimeter of heel in this scenario and not having a kink or hump in the fretboard. A straight edge reveals a relatively flat plan, minus a few too-tall frets. The angle is just a little lower than I’d like, as mentioned before.

When you say my measurements could be more precise, are you talking about the number of cents sharp that the strings played at the 12th or my measurement of fret spacing? Either way, your probably correct. Your point about measuring from the nut to the fret, rather than fret to fret is well taken.

Also, it makes sense that the string height being too high at the nut would pull the strings sharp, as well.

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sweat the small stuff.

Any comment on the fretboard being too long from nut to first fret?

Anyone confirm that this instrument is 24.84” scale length like their current instruments. This one is about 17+ years old.

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sweat the small stuff.

It’s either 24.84 or 25.5. If it’s a dreadnought, it’s more likely long scale, but simple enough to sort out — just measure down the centre line from face of nut to centre of the 12th fret and multiple by two. Regardless of nut compensation, that measurement will be within 1 mm of the design scale length. You can’t determine scale length by summing the distances between frets.

If indeed there is a manufacturing flaw, it’s much more likely that the saddle is incorrectly placed. Fret spacing is pretty much guaranteed to be correct, but anything is possible.

While you’ve got your ruler handy, measure the distance from the face of the nut to the FRONT of the saddle slot along the 1st and 6th strings (the saddle itself is 1/8”). We can determine from that how far off the saddle might be.


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Full disclosure, I do not have a 36” ruler. I have a good Starrett 12” rule graduated in 1/64” intervals. A long ruler is on my short list.

I measured very carefully from nut to 11th fret and 11th to 12th. Doubling that gives me 24.875”. If I subtract the .015” that I think the nut end of the fretboard is off (before doubling), I get a cool 24.84” scale length. That makes sense to me. Sound right to you?

I suspect the nut end of the fretboard is a touch too long because that’s the only measured fret distance that doesn’t compare well to it’s calculated distance.

Now, keeping in mind my, eh hem, short ruler, I measured 24.867” for high e distance and 25.008” distance for low E.

I also used my Saddlematic to check relative distances and it lands right at the front edge of the saddle slot for the high e and approximately 1/16” from the front of the saddle slot on the low E. That’s not much compensation, is it? The saddle is 1/8” thick.

To be clear, I wasn’t adding fret distances together to come up with a scale length. I was measuring individual fret distances and comparing them to the numbers in Stew Mac’s fret calculator. I initially thought it was 24.9” scale length before I looked up what S&P uses.

I’m very tempted to cut the nut end of the fretboard back approximately .030”. That will land me about .015” of nut compensation. Am I crazy?

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sweat the small stuff.

One way to check the intonation of the fret board and saddle is to fret the first fret and tune it to pitch and then fret the 13th fret and see how well it agrees. Check the 2nd fret and 14th, 3rd fret and 15th. If they all match pretty well then the nut is probably the problem. If they don't then you should look at the action and saddle, and lastly the fret spacing itself. The nut could still be off, but eliminating other causes first might keep you from cutting too much off.

Wow, that totally makes sense. Reading that was a bit of a moment for me. Thanks so much for the info! I’ll have to try that out when I get home.

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sweat the small stuff.