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Gibson fretboard radius?

Ponchos Lefty

New member
Joined
Mar 12, 2018
Messages
3
Ok I have hesitated to post without knowing my exact radius thinking I could find something similar on this forum. Well I’ve been unseccessfull so here goes. I have a 71-72 54-58 reissue Les Paul. The fretboard is extremely flat. I have never seen one like it. You can look across it and still see neatly no bump at all. I’ve heard about fretless wonders and was curious if this was unique to their design. I have played many Les Pauls and never felt ran across anything like it. I could pick it out of a thousand blindfolded. Anybody else ever ran across a flat one before?
 

Arnold M.

Active member
Joined
Mar 29, 2018
Messages
296
I had a 2015 and the fingerboard was a 10" radius .. have a True Historic Les Paul and fingerboard is a perfect 12" radius
 

GPie1288

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Joined
Jun 4, 2019
Messages
2
The fingerboard radius of a Les Paul is 1 in 12. It had nothing to do with inches. I know I am an old man, but I remember when the fingerboard used be given as a radius. Examples are 1:7.25, 1:9.25, 1:12, etc, etc. Now the fingerboard radius is given as 7.25" or 12". What the fuck is that? A radius is a radius no matter if you use inches, centimeters, yards, meters or miles.

I don't know that your age or the age of the universe has anything to d o with a Les Paul, whether old or new. What you're describing is commonly referred to as a ratio. If the units are given in inches then the ratio is 1 to 12 or in the case of a circle we say that the radius of that circle is 12 inches. We MUST give the fretboard radius a unit of measure as we actually have to BUILD it. Inches were the Imperial unit of choice. We could also describe the circle in terms of diameter of course, which in this case would be 24 inches. It's mathematical 'Toe-May-Toe/Toh-Mah-Toh'. Or another overused cliche; "6 of one, half dozen of the other". How's that for 'Old Man'?
 

GPie1288

New member
Joined
Jun 4, 2019
Messages
2
Get some fretboard radius gages from StewMac to confirm.
I'm working on a 1960/61 SG right now where the board is almost a 10" radius, while the fret tops are close to 12". This happened often back in the day because most Luthiers doing fretwork used flat files or blocks to shape the board. I see compound radii as well. However I'm fairly certain those were inadvertent. Anyway the Gibson drawings all called for 12 inch radius [to the best of my knowledge]...... We have some of those old drawings at the shop. [copies I'm sure]
 
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