Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I know this is really getting into the nitty-gritty, but I was curious. It seems like most brands of guitars have tended toward flatter radii over the years. Thanks!

Most have gone to a flatter fretboard radius.

From memory here are the USA radius'

Vintage Fender...about 7&1/4" to 8"
Modern Fender ...9",11"

Gibson electrics 10" or 12"

Rickenbacker since the mid 1980's 10",before that it varied ,and this has been beat to death with a large stick.If you must know what YOUR instrument is ...then make a simple cardboard template using a compass.Then check it after you cut this out .

Gretsch 10"

Guild 10"

Acoustics ...most have been 14" to 16" radius
Gibson was different in that they used 10"and 12" depending upon era.

As to the flatness of fretboards ...there is a logical reason for this flattening.

Playing styles change and the industry has grown up .There was a time when makers DID NOT listen to feedback from players.This is indeed changing .

Leo Fender (a non player) had no idea what radius to use on his guitars when he first started making instruments.The players that he dealt with ,in no way played like the players of NOW .
If you want a guitar that is easy to bend strings on ,you need a flatter fretboard than 7&1/4".

I just took some photos of a 1965 360 -12 strong that I worked on .

I layed my fretting 'shoes' on the fretboard to check the radius .....WOW!!!!

Dick Burke at work there!

End of the fretboard was 10" at the 13th fret ....sort of 7& 1/4" and at the nut a multi radius ....part 7&1/4 and part 5" radius .

The fingerboard on my '67 370WB 6-string has the greatest degree of curve of any guitar I've ever seen. The bridge saddles, however, are relatively flat, so that my E-strings are much higher off the fretboard than my D or G. Should I cut the grooves in the saddles deeper? Should I have the saddles filed to a greater contour? Thanks for any info you can give me.

Don't go changing the bridge yet ...You might consider the condition of your frets first .

If they are badly worn ,and a refret is near...I would 'clean-up' the radius to 10" and then refret .

THEN....fix the bridge .

AS the saddles on the old (pre 1984) bridges are virtually one offs (meaning the saddles ARE NOT interchangeable!) you need to preserve them as best you can.

If you have troubles playing all styles on your guitar ,this could be attributed to this radical radius .

I have photos of this phenomina.I have a 10" fretting shoe and a 7&1/4" fretting shoe on the fretboard to demonstrate this . You can see how wacky this gets on older guitars .

I am so glad that since JH took over that this stopped and now the radius is 'true'.

The boards were true decades before I had anything to do with it. We're still using the same machine for this and have only had to rebuild it when components were worn or broken. We've hashed through this before.

The C Series are the first to have fingerboards radiused by CNC, in fact the entire necks are made this way with very high accuracy.

The frets are OK and the fingerboard is lacquered so I wouldn't want to plane or sand it down. I'll leave the bridge alone. The guitar plays well and I enjoy idiosyncracies in vintage guitars (I used to collect Gretsches...whew!!).