Fingerboard Radius

[hi13ts]

I'm not too sure what a fingerboard radius is. I've heard that Gibsons typically use a 12 radius, and whatnot, but I never understood the whole concept. Just recently, a luthier "re-adjusted" my Les Paul's radius, and he also raised the action. Is it even possible to "re-adjust" a guitar's fingerboard radius? Any info on this topic will be appreciated, pictures will be appreciated more.

[GuitarJunkie]

Draw a circle 24 inches across (that would be a 12 inch radius). Now look at the amount of curve on the outside edge. That would be the amount of curvature on the surface of a fretboard with a 12 inch radius. The smaller the radius, the more curve there is around the edge, so a 9 inch radius fretboard would have more curve on the surface.

 

The only way to change the fretboard radius would be for your tech to remove the frets, sand the surface of you fretboard, and then re-install new frets.

[DoubleSixx]

Re-adjusting the radius can mean a few things.

 

Did you recently have the guitar re-fretted ?

 

I'm guessing no (but I could be wrong [i usually am wrong]) so he probably leveled the

frets.

 

Some luthiers will plane the fingerboard if they are re-fretting a guitar.

 

I'm sure there's a limit to the amounts you can re-adjust (plane the fingerboar) before

you can no longer plane the fingerboard.

[Silverbursted]

This should help.

http://www.guitartechcraig.com/techneck/necks.htm

[hi13ts]

Thanks a lot for your replies! Are Gibsons usually a 12'' radius? I'm not too sure what my luthier did, I'll have to ask him again because I'd like to lower the action, but I wasn't too sure what he did with the radius. Thanks again for all your help