Epiphone AJ-220SCE/VS Missing Saddle

[VegasAU]

Hi I picked up this guitar for pretty cheap on Craigslist but was in a hurry when picking it up and didn’t notice it was missing a saddle. I’m just picking guitar up as a hobby but still should have seen it. Regardless I’m always game for a project so I am planning to order and replace the saddle myself. All of the helpful DIY videos reference the height of the old saddle. I don’t have the old saddle.

am I going to have to just take the string on and off a ton for trial and error or does someone here have one and could possibly tell me the height of theirs? I figure I would start a little higher but it’s better than starting with nothing.

 

Also can someone tell me the suggested action height? I can’t find a manual or anything online.

 

TIA

[ksdaddy]

It's not an exact science because you don't know (at this point) how much the neck will shift and the top will rise under full string tension. You can get somewhere close just by laying a yardstick from the first fret (not the nut) to the bridge and lift the bridge end of the stick up so you have a little space at the 12th fret...not a lot, maybe 1/16" to a max of 1/8".  That will give you an idea of how much your new saddle should protrude up from your bridge. Again, that's just to get you close, and I'm sure you'll want to tweak it. Some people even have a summer saddle and a winter saddle. Depends very much on the guitar. I have some that shift if the sun goes behind a cloud or if I'm boiling water on the stove, and I have others that shrug off being left in a snowbank.