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Well more guitar distortion really.
Just checked the intonation on a 2 year old build.
I was quite fussy setting this up originally, used a good tuner.
Just checked it again yesterday, same tuner. and had to move the break points on the saddle back ~1 mm to get the intonation acceptably.
Reset action and relief to original specs.
No sign of cold creep/movement at the bridge.
How much do your builds move??.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

It's hard to say how much - I've never really measured. I will say I have had to adjust the necks on some lightly built instruments to lower the action, because I didn't want to lower the saddle. Being "bolt ons" this was relatively painless.
Two things I do now - less perimeter sanding and (almost unconsciously) over compensate the saddle slightly. When I sanded the perimeter to where I felt I was getting an extremely responsive plate the top would pull up enough over a few months to require resetting the action. I still use my fingertips to feel how the soundboard is reacting to various frequencies, but accept less forceful responses. I will also accept the 12th fret fundamental being a - little - flat initially - the overtones are going a little sharp anyway, and as you noticed, it is more likely the string will go sharp than go flatter.
So I tend to build a little "heavier" than I used to and leave more wood in the plates.

If the neck comes off easily, see if there are indentations in the soundboard binding where the heel cheeks push into it. That's one of the reasons I dislike bolt-on necks.

On my acoustics, I don’t do final setup until 2 months after I first string it up. The action sometimes raises as much as 3/64” due to a combination of truss rod settlement and bridge belly. I had one come back after 5 years where I had to fill and recut the saddle slot to restore intonation because the bridge had rotated a bit and the saddle was tilting slightly. That’s the price of a light build.

Any bridge roll? 1mm ain’t a lot of rotation...

My guitar making teacher used to say that he never heard of a guitar getting longer as it aged.

Apologies for restarting the thread...

Colin that does seem quite a lot of shrinkage. I've just checked and G&G allow only .5 of a mm for body compression in their bridge placement calc.

A falcate braced one I have been able to check after some months hadn't moved at all.

Do you know how soon after stringing up you did the intonation?

Dave M

First time only a few days.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.