Intonation questions

[purduebretty]

I put together an sg for my brother and am still having some intonation issues.  Measured the neck and it's exactly 25.5 in the middle of the bridge so it's not a placement thing.  But I've pushed the bridge as far back as it goes and saddles all the way back same with the saddles but most of the strings are still sharp on the 12th fret.  Almost ten cents for some strings.  The neck relief is pretty good.  Just enough for a playing card on the seventh fret.  Just seeing what would be best.  I feel that I have a little leeway with the action and can move the bridge up anddownstill.  Soif I,m sharp, am I right in thinking that if I straigen out the neck and lower the bridge it would allow me to get it closer. 

 

[Cagey]

Is it possible you're fretting too hard at the 12th fret? If you have tall frets, it's pretty easy to seriously sharp the thing with too much pressure. Just touch the string to the fret, don't try to teach it a lesson. Also, I don't know what kind of neck you have, but SG necks are notoriously flexible. How you hold it or set it can affect how close to tune you'll be when you're looking at small increments like cents. Finally, many tuners aren't even accurate to 10 cents, since that's about the range of most human's hearing when it comes to discerning pitch. You may be chasing ghosts.

Edit: Out of curiousity, I just plugged in my Boss TU-2, and I can easily get 50+ cents worth of travel at the 12th fret depending on how hard I press on the string. But, I have 6100-size frets on there, which are about as tall as it gets without getting into scalloping the fretboard. Still, that gives you an idea how important a part fingering pressure plays in tuning. I invariably have to retune my guitar(s) after letting somebody else play them, because they retune them coming from me. Different finger pressures will make them play in/out of tune, regardless of the open string tune or intonation accuracy.

 

[drewfx]

If you're comparing the 12th fret to the open string, check the nut to make sure the open string isn't flat, or compare to the 1st fret to the 13th.

Also, what gauge of strings are we talking about?

 

[purduebretty]

They're 10s.  And feel super light with the action.  I imagine if I had 11 or 12s might go better.  it's also new and made some adjustments to the bow of the neck so I'm going to let it settle for a bit and then go back and reasses.