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My Guitar's Neck Doesn't Feel Radiused


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I'm New to stuff, so be nice! If i sound like an idiot let me know and let me also know why.

No sarcastic comments or jokes or i'll start to cry.

I appreciate the help.

I just don't get the radiused fretboard/neck? concept. I did check some of it out at ther warmoth site and whatever else i could with the search button but it ain't like google search you know. It doesn't even care what you type. It searches what it wishes for. I have no say in the matter :D

Coming to the point, My Rg's neck doesnt feel radiused, what should i do?

:D

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It may not feel like it's radiused, but an RG neck is radiused even though it's a flatter radius than most (16", 17" range). The purpose for a radius is so you hands are comfortable when playing chords. If you have too small of a radius like the older Fender guitars (7-1/4") play great for chording around the 1st fret to 12th, but when you play lead the radius would make your string bends fretout bad, so they switched to a flatter (9-1/2") radius to solve the problem and was a nice compromise. A Gibson guitar has a (12") radius and it's personally my favorite to play on as it's perfect for chords and lead in my opinion. Warmoth uses a compound radius (10" to 16") since it makes chording easier in the lower fret range, and playing lead on the upper frets with the 16" radius is a breeze. So it's kinda the best of both worlds.. lol

Here's a good link on Ibanez neck specs from Jemsite.

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if you're still not convinced the next time you change your strings take a straight edge and place it on the fretboard parallel to your frets and see if it rocks or sets flat. if it rocks your fretboard is radiused.

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It may not feel like it's radiused, but an RG neck is radiused even though it's a flatter radius than most (16", 17" range).  The purpose for a radius is so you hands are comfortable when playing chords.  If you have too small of a radius like the older Fender guitars (7-1/4") play great for chording around the 1st fret to 12th, but when you play lead the radius would make your string bends fretout bad, so they switched to a flatter (9-1/2") radius to solve the problem and was a nice compromise.  A Gibson guitar has a (12") radius and it's personally my favorite to play on as it's perfect for chords and lead in my opinion.  Warmoth uses a compound radius (10" to 16") since it makes chording easier in the lower fret range, and playing lead on the upper frets with the 16" radius is a breeze.  So it's kinda the best of both worlds.. lol

Here's a good link on Ibanez neck specs from Jemsite.

:D

Are you talking about the neck or the fretboard?

Also, there is a difference between a neck's radius and the fretboard's radius. When I read the thread's title, I couldn't imagine how a neck could be flat but now I understand.  :D

LOL!

I'm just talking about radius in relation to fretboard and Neck. I'm very confused.

I wanna build a Baritone seven to play endless Death Metal so i'm trying to learn and read and stuff and whatever i can't understand i try to look up n stuff but what im trying to say where im asking about radiusing is, you have these radius blocks for fretboards and stuff. So i was trying to learn and calculate through reading the tutorials on this site( Thanks for that!) and the first thing in the fretting tutorial(fretting simplified) is a radius fretting caul and a matching radius block i skipped and ignored them read the tutorial and picked up my guitar and i couldn't feel no radius on the fretboard but like uncle j pointed out i should use a straightedge and...

But besides that what do you mean by neck radius and also if theres anything on fretboard radius too.. thanks for all your help.

Edited by bombershredder
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I'm talking about the fingerboard radius. Classical guitars and some old acoustics don't have a radius on the fingerboard and is perfectly flat, which some people love. One of the best playing guitars I ever played was by a local man who build an acoustic with no radius, the action was unreal and no buzzing, which leads me to believe that the flatter the radius, the lower you can go without buzzes. I'm actually going to build an acoustic next year that has no radius because I liked it so much. The back of the neck is shaped differently and doesn't have to be a perfect radius. Most are asymmetrical shaped, and are contoured for ease of play.

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I'm talking about the fingerboard radius.  Classical guitars and some old acoustics don't have a radius on the fingerboard and is perfectly flat, which some people love.  One of the best playing guitars I ever played was by a local man who build an acoustic with no radius, the action was unreal and no buzzing, which leads me to believe that the flatter the radius, the lower you can go without buzzes.  I'm actually going to build an acoustic next year that has no radius because I liked it so much.  The back of the neck is shaped differently and doesn't have to be a perfect radius.  Most are asymmetrical shaped, and are contoured for ease of play.

SO, the ibanez Steve vai designed flatback neck isn't a complete radius? Like the kind i have on my RG2020TB(2001 i think). The fretboard must be radiused i guess, it doesn't feel radiused or it isnt as evident as a pickup being present on the guitar! I guess i'll have to actually build and play these things to know. Thanks for the info.

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My wife has a classical guitar that has a fret-board radius that is *beyond* flat; it is "concaved". I wonder if it was made that way (supposedly about 30 years old). Drives me nuts to play on it, but it's got a great tone.

Wow, never seen a guitar that was actually radiused concaved, interesting... You know we've both discussed flat fingerboards before, and it's definitely worth looking into, but some people find them uncomfortable. The acoustic I was referring to had a flat fingerboard, and it played excellent and sounded like an old Martin. He built it that way because he said he noticed that the old acoustic guitars that he loved had a flat fingerboard also. He's almost got me convinced on a flat fingerboard, especially with the action you can get with one.

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full chords are out of the question on that classical guitar, and I wonder how well I'd do on a flat board, because when I look at my fingers, first fingers seems to be able to go pretty flat, second finger looks like it can match a 16" radius, but no flatter, 3rd finger looks like the flattest it can go is a 9.5" radius , and little finger can go pretty much flat. if that doesn't call for a multi-radius fret-board, I don't know what does ! LOL

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'Non-radiused' fretboards on mandolins or Classical guitars are often given a very mild radius, simply to prevent them looking concave, or becoming concave if the fretboard dries out. I imagine your wifes' dried up and hadn't been given a micro radius,so it is now slightly concave.

Are the frets down tight in the centre of the board?

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http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/necks/necks....seaction=radius

I'm gonna havta build a few and see what these guys are talking about.

How difficult would a Compound Radius Fingerboard be to build?

Also i still don't Understand, WHY, it would be more comfortable, a radius on the fingerboard. How would the radius help with the thicker and higher strings and also the middle strings which are near the origin of the radius you know from where it starts to radius the centre the G and D would probably be there. And the E 's would be on the more convex area..right? SO how is that helping your fingers Also why is it called a radius? Isn't a radius half diameter??lol..

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what you are over looking, is that the board has a uniform radius all the way from low E to high E, and the nut is also formed to that radius, the bridge as well has the saddles height adjusted to be the same as that radius. so the strings follow a curve all the way across the board

as for compound radius boards i have no idea how one would make one from scratch, but if u want even action across all ur strings u will have to find a bridge with a radius the same as the higher end of ur fret board, and a nut with the same radius as the lower end of the fret board.

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A wizard neck proprably.

Yes. That's it.

I hate Wizard necks, they are so damn flat and your thumb feels really uncomfortable sliding on a flat plank and it feels even more horrible when you have to do some chord work.

Funny thing is some people find those Ibanez Wizard necks amazing. :D

What are the prestige necks? Which is the neck on the RG2020TB

Yes i can notice the radiuc/curve at the area where the board meets the locking nuts. Thanks.

Onto tnext question what does the radius have to do in setting action?

i should just set the action aroun 1.2 and 1.3 on each string? it don't matter or play an imp role do it? I'm guessing not. So i'll set the action and then if the action is the same on all the strings and set properly the strings will be following the radius right? BUt i'm still not getting how it improves the playing and it is SO MILD!

It seems to be radiusing more towards the thicker strings, even on my acoustic under the nut.. :D

What so you use to measure the action?

Edited by bombershredder
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How difficult would a Compound Radius Fingerboard be to build?

Also i still don't Understand, WHY, it would be more comfortable, a radius on the fingerboard. How would the radius help with the thicker and higher strings and also the middle strings which are near the origin of the radius you know from where it starts to radius the centre the G and D would probably be there. And the E 's would be on the more convex area..right? SO how is that helping your fingers  Also why is it called a radius? Isn't a radius half diameter??lol..

The reason a radiusing helps is because it helps chording. Example: Hold your left hand out in front of you, looking from the side so that your thumb is pointing toward you, now relax all your fingers and you will see they don't stay flat. That's why the fingerboard is radiused, so it's comfortable for your fingers, and also the strings follow that radius of the fingerboard when setup correctly.

Onto tnext question what does the radius have to do in setting action?

i should just set the action aroun 1.2 and 1.3 on each string? it don't matter or play an imp role do it? I'm guessing not. So i'll set the action and then if the action is the same on all the strings and set properly the strings will be following the radius right? BUt i'm still not getting how it improves the playing and it is SO MILD!

It seems to be radiusing more towards the thicker strings, even on my acoustic under the nut.. :D

What so you use to measure the action?

The small radius of an Ibanez is very mild, but some people like a near flat radius, while others aren't comfortable playing on that flat of a fingerboard. But the 16", or 17" radius Ibanez neck still has a radius, and yes in my experience it makes for lower action simply because of the way the string vibrates, and a lot more factors that I could write a book about.. lol Anyway, whatever radius the fingerboard is, it is symettrical from edge to edge of fingerboard.

On a side note, you can make a compound radius neck, but you don't use radius blocks to sand, you can use a 18" carpenters level and sand in the direction of where the strings travel instead of keeping parallel with the center of the neck when sanding. I hope this makes sense.

I use a 6" small steel ruler to measure action or string action guage I got from StewMac.

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I now understand why the fretboard radius helps. I understand how it helps keep the hand relaxed.

Thanks Guitarfrenzy you've been a great help.

:D

no problem bro..

Here's an article I found about classical guitar going concave like Robert (soapbar) was talking about. LINK

It's probably just dried like was mentioned, but I'm still curious why the frets didn't turn loose in the middle, maybe they was glued? Humm.. interesting.

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Possibly glued, and possibly installed from the side (old Fender style). I know of at least one current classical guitar builder installing frets from the side, so maybe it's not an uncommon thing for German classical guitar construction.

My wife's guitar was never left in a hot car . But you guys have me pretty convinced the concave board is from years of drying, and that also supports my opinion that really dried out wood sounds so much better (lay off the polish and "fret-board conditioner", kids ).

I also thought more about my other post where I mentioned the radius match of my fingers and am now wondering : When would I ever need my 3rd finger to fret all 6 strings ? I don't recall ever needing that when playing. I still don't know what radius is best for me, even after playing for 20 years. I've done amazing stuff on a 12" radius board though.

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Also why is it called a radius? Isn't a radius half diameter??lol..

Yup! That's EXACTLY why the fingerboard's curvature is called the radius. If you take the curvature of your fingerboard and CONTINUE with it instead of just stopping at the edge of your fingerboard, eventually you will complete a full circle. The radius measurement is the distance from the surface of your fingerboard to the imaginary centre of the imaginary circle you've created. :D

In other words, imagine your fingerboard as just the shaving from the edge of a (for example) log with a 12" radius cross-section.

Greg

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