Understanding neck radius (Rick bass)

[squirefan01]

I found a new guitar shop around me, that seems more oriented towards service then sales. As a novice talking to the owner, I get the feeling that he really knows what he's talking about when it comes to building & servicing guitars and Ricks. I was looking for somebody local who really knew about Ricks, to get a setup and maybe someday a re-fret. He talked alot about dealing with the neck bindings and different combinations of metals in the fret material (80/20 vs. 60/40...I forget what the 2 metals were).

In talking with this guy, he asked me what the radius was on my '87 4003. I didn't know what he was talking about. He said that in some years (maybe including mine), Rick basses were sold with 2 different radiuses...16 inch or 20 inch. He said that's important when dealing with a re-fret, but it wasn't a big deal as he had the sanding equipment to handle either.

Poking around in this forum, I can't find much about radius, and I wondered if what he said was accurate. That also brought a question into my mind about radius and its connection to all of the discussions about "neck thickness" here.

Any comments?

Thanks

[ken_j]

I believe Rick uses a 10" radius.

[chrisdski]

OK, so I am going to pull some frets off my 82 4001 and sand the neck finish down. I plan to buy the radius sanding block from Stew Mac. 10" is it then for a 1982 4001 neck radius?

http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... p?id=13165

[Wiker]

Just a couple of weeks ago I almost ordered 10" sanding blocks from Stew Mac myself, based on current spec sheets at the RIC site saying Crown Radius 10" for all 400x basses.
At the last moment I thought I’d better check my basses to make sure, and found that my ’79 4001 and ’97 4001V63, they both have 20" radius.

[jdawe]

That also brought a question into my mind about radius and its connection to all of the discussions about "neck thickness" here.

"Radius" and "neck thickness" are really two different things. Radius is a measure of the curvature of the fingerboard. Imagine that you sawed off your headstock, put the butt end of the neck against some paper and traced the curvature of the fretboard, and then continued the curve so that you had a circle. The distance from the center of that circle to the edge would be the fretboard radius. The flatter your fretboard, the bigger the resulting circle would be -- if your fretboard was completely flat you would get a straight line, which can be thought of as a circle with infinite radius. So a larger radius means a flatter fretboard, while a smaller radius indicates a more pronounced fingerboard curve.

Neck thickness, on the other hand, refers to the size of the neck overall (and also the shape of the back side, which can significantly affect how the neck feels in your hand).

The two measures are different because you could have a very thick neck with a flat fretboard, a very skinny neck with a highly curved fretboard, or any combination thereof.

I don't know much about Rick basses and can't say whether the changes in neck thickness and contour over the years were accompanied by any changes in the fingerboard radius. My understanding is that with RIC guitars the neck profile has regularly been tweaked without changing the radius.

Since the radius on the 4003 is currently 10"', I'd be surprised if it was as large as 16" or 20" in 1987 - that would be a pretty radical change. But there are a lot of people here far more knowledgeable than me, and I'm sure they will weigh in if I'm wrong.

[clementc3]

Pickguardian has a PDF that you can print which has templates for measuring your fretboard radius here:

http://www.pickguardian.com/pickguardia ... Gauges.pdf

[Wiker]

Pickguardian has a PDF that you can print which has templates for measuring your fretboard radius here:
http://www.pickguardian.com/pickguardia ... Gauges.pdf

Thanks! I printed the templates to double check my own measurers.
Oh man, where did I have my head??? I made my own curvature templates by printing a 20" circle on paper – but with 20" diameter, not radius (20" diameter of course is 10" radius).
So, both my basses have 10" radius.
Glad I cleared that up before sanding anything, and now I’ll have to get a set of 10" sanding blocks. Anyone needs a set of 20" blocks