Neck Radius

[BJunior]

Hey All been a while since I actually posted anything here.... got a question..

It's quite rare that I get a chance to buy any equipment and I've been having strat gas for a while. I'm wondering what everyones opinion is on the Radius on the Classic 60's strat (7 1/4" I believe) as well as the 9 1/2" Radius and the the old 12" Radius.

The 7 1/4 felt pretty comfy and great for chording but I'm just wondering if I should strike a good balance and pick up a Highway 1 with the 9 1/2 Radius and the Jumbo Frets. There both in the same ball park price wise.... Really want the American Strat knowing that I'm looking for my main axe and it's years between purchases of this magnitude....

Just looking for opinions...

Thanks

[Robert]

Good topic! I don't think I have actually tried a 7.5 inch radius or 7 1/4. What Fenders have this radius?

My 12" radius Fender Players Deluxe neck is quite amazing to play, but I do find some things harder to play on it. A lot of bending for example, make my fingers tire out quicker than on the 9.5" radius necks.

[Tone2TheBone]

BJunior - get the guitar that feels and sounds good to YOU. Get the one you really want.

Rob - the 7.25 radius necks are standard on all Fender vintage series and classic series Strats.

[BJunior]

Thanks Tone,

Actually I was looking for some deeper discussion on the matter.... I play quite the variety of styles. I'm the only electric guitarist in the church band so I have to cover the gammit of whatever's needed and I was intrigued by the importance of this.... I was looking to put some Kinman pickups in an MIM as an option of obtaining some good tone... here is a link to some info I dug up on the matter... as well as a link to his Radii page.


Fretboard radius:
For those who are getting a guitar made and have the opportunity to specify the fretboard radius I recommend that a uniform radius somewhere between 9" and 11" is ideal. In general, I prefer a uniform radius anyday over a 10"-16" compound radius which have real problems with staggered pole pickups and slightly less problems with flat pole pickups.. Recently I became aware of USA Custom Guitars who make a 7-1/4" to 9-1/2" compound radius...this is a highly intelligent solution in my view because you can have all the benefits of no string choking, hand comfort and excellent string volume balance with staggered pole pickups. Good on ya USA Custom Guitars....well done.Interestingly, Fenders 9.5" radius works quite well in the majority of cases although I settled on an 11" radius for my own guitars back in the 1980's just for extra reassurance. In fact I find some necks are just too flat and have no advantage over an 11" radius in addressing the string-bend choking problem in the upper register. Moreover I have found excessively flat radii or excessive compound radii to restrict choice of pickups to flat pole configurations. That means you can't use staggered poles to compensate for the extra output of an non-wound 'G' string" and string output balance in general will be far less than desirable with less flat radii. For more info about Fretboard radii go to the Radius page in my Tone Workshop.

Taken from http://www.kinman.com/html/toneWorkshop/perfectGuitar.htm#magnets

The Radii Page as well:
http://www.kinman.com/html/toneWorkshop/radius.htm

Interesting stuff.. what do you think?

[Tone2TheBone]

Looks like you have a lot of information on this already. I have several different radii from 3 different types of guitars. 7.25 from the 50s Classic...a 9.5 from both the Tele and MIM 60s Strat...and a flatter radius from my Gibson (I don't even know what kind of radius it is on that one). I can play between them with no trouble. I have found that on the 7.25 vintage radius neck that there is no such thing as fretout as I feared. If you've got the neck adjusted right and it's straight and your string heights are average height then it's not an issue at all. I have noticed though that I play faster licks from a flatter radius like the 9.5 necks and the Les Pauls on the higher strings (B,E). The strings bounce back off the fretboard easier on the flatter radius necks. They also bounce back easier from bigger frets.

[abraxas]

Actually, the thing with fretboard radii is a little more complicated....

Bear in mind that, almost all older guitars that have been played a lot, have gone through one or more refrets.

It is not uncommon for the player to ask from the luthier doing the refret, to sand the fretboard to a flatter radius. For example. Eric Johnson strats started life with the vintage 7.25 radius, but have gone to about 12" after a couple of refrets.

A compound radius is easy to make out of an existing fretboard. Most players want flatter upper registers while retaining the curvature on the first frets for easier chordal work. I think Kinman is right: 7.25-9.5 or 10-12 or something similar, seem more logical IMO.

Furthermore, a "compound" radius is easy to make by working the frets themselves to a flatter radius as you go up the neck. You need to have some beef on the frets for that; vintage frets are not the best because quite a bit of material has to be removed. On the other hand, most players, while refretting their instruments, ask for bigger frets anyway.

In my experience, a totally vintage radius/fretwork is somewhat of a pain. This is because I use a rather light touch and don't want to fight the strings: but that's just me. All my guitars have a radius of 9.5" or more and I find this more convenient. Any less than that would result in an uncomfortably high action, and I want to bend at least 3 semitones on the high E string.

In closing, I believe you have to take into consideration the shape of the neck as well. A really fat neck C or U shape neck, will work differently than a V-shaped or thin D-shape, having the same radius and frets.

[abraxas]

Looks like you have a lot of information on this already. I have several different radii from 3 different types of guitars. 7.25 from the 50s Classic...a 9.5 from both the Tele and MIM 60s Strat...and a flatter radius from my Gibson (I don't even know what kind of radius it is on that one).

Gibsons (theoretically) have a radius of 14" (13.75" to be exact) ;)

[Tone2TheBone]

Gibsons (theoretically) have a radius of 14" (13.75" to be exact) ;)

Thanks for that info AB. You're totally correct on the differences in neck shapes too. When I played a JV Strat (medium jumbo frets, 9.5 radius, V neck shape) the neck felt way bigger around than the V shape off of the vintage radius 7.25 neck of a Classic 50s when I was comparing them.

[tot_Ou_tard]

I find this discussion very interesting. Both of my guitars are Godins & they have a 12" radius.