a strange mandolin

[allegromoderato]

hi all mandolin lover, i am a guitarist who love mandolin i have a mandolin made in China . when i set the correct intonation mandolin bridge stay a little above from f hole. it does not prevent to play but it is not aesthetic. whats is yor ideas? sorry for my poor English thanks you . photo : https://i.hizliresim.com/BsXLzq.jpg

[NickR]

If the bridge position you show gives the correct intonation, then there is nothing you can do other than accept it, even if it looks a bit odd!

[dhbailey]

You don't have the pair of E strings on the mandolin. In my opinion you shouldn't be worrying about intonation until you have all the strings on the instrument because the additional pressure of the E strings will affect everything else. Put the E strings on, bring it all up to pitch, and then see if your 12th fret gives you the proper octave intonation. I thinkt that if you do that and then make the adjustments your bridge will sit much more parallel to the frets. The placement relative to the notches in the F holes is much less important than having proper intonation.

[MikeEdgerton]

It appears the bridge top may be reversed but it's hard to tell for sure. What you might want to do is to take it to a luthier that knows how to do a proper setup on a mandolin. This wasn't a real expensive instrument to begin with so they could have small issues but without being setup correctly the issue just get worse. It also looks like the tailpiece is off center but that could just be an illusion caused by the angle of the bridge and the angle of the photo.

For posterity:

[Bill Cameron]

That bridge looks to me like it should be about 2.5cm closer to the tailpiece. There isn’t enough room, even with the short fingerboard, for comfortable picking as it is shown. Typically there should be about 13.9” string length between the nut and the bridge. You could still set up the intonation correctly, just a matter of angling the bridge correctly. (And put those E strings on!) Mike’s advice is right too, if you can take it to a pro they should have it right in no time. Happy picking.