Neck Marginally Off Centre?

[mandrian]

Hi,

Some reassurance needed.

I have a Stelling LS5 (F type) that I have used little in recent years as I now prefer A types. I’ve been thinking about selling it, so decided to restring it. I took off the bridge, cleaned up the mandolin and set to putting it back together using Rob’s ebook on setup that he recently made available on the café.

No real problems there, but I noticed when locating the bridge that I needed to locate it closer to the treble f hole than the bass f hole. I needed to do this because unless I did this the outside G string was very close to the outside of the fretboard. Similarly the other strings were located too far across the fretboard so that if you looked at the outside E string there was quite a gap between where it was and where the outside of the fretboard was. In terms of how much closer I located the bridge towards the treble f hole you are probably talking about half an inch.

The mandolin is fine in terms of playability and intonation. I believe that previous setups of the mandolin (performed by others) tended to put the bridge where I located it, but I never really paid that much attention andthey never made any comments.

I’m presuming that the reason I must place the bridge towards the treble f hole is that the neck (although straight) must slightly favour that side of centre. Is this unusual or anything to worry about? I just wanted to make sure in case I sell it.

I have had the mandolin since new. Bought from Mandolin Brothers in 2000. Never touched the truss rod.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

[Fretbear]

It's not uncommon for the location of the F-holes to be slightly asymmetrical in both directions, up and down and back and forth. You may have an option (depending on the set-up) of nudging the bridge over by some amount in the desired direction by adjusting where the string slots are in the saddle.

[Dale Ludewig]

Yes, it's not uncommon for the bridge to be off center slightly. At least visually related to the f-holes. The way to really know if it's off center is to run a straight edge from center of nut to center of where the tailpiece attaches and see where the middle of the fingerboard where it meets the body is. If the holes are symettrical to the outside of the body, it sounds like something is going on. But strings have to be spaced properly to the edges of the fingerboard. 1/2" to one side with the bridge sounds like an awful lot. MHO.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Fretbear & Dale are perfectly correct. My Lebeda mandolin has holes that appear to be assymetrical re,the bridge position. I position the bridge relative to the neck.The old idea of positioning the bridge 'dead on' between the 'f' holes doesn't always work out - although in theory it should,
Ivan 77674

[mandrian]

Yes, I did the straight edge check and everything was fine. It was the fact that the treble f hole was nearer the neck than the base that was throwing me.

Thanks.