It looks like most electric guitars and some acoustic guitars have a 10" to 12" radius in the fret-board and strings. Why are the strings arranged to have a radius? What am I missing here, something about strumming or picking?
I know a violin has a rather small radius so only one string can be played with the bow. But, I'm not playing my CBG with a bow.
For no reason I know, I have put about a 30" radius radius in my strings on my fret-less guitars. I make my own steel finger slides and can machine the slide radius to match the string radius. If the slide and string radius matches, I seem to have less string rattle from one of the strings not getting good contact with the slide when making a chord.
This is probably an insignificant detail, but maybe not.
Thanks,
Uncle Fred
Replies
Ergo-economics: people buy what feels more comfortable to play, manufacturers make more of whatever people buy...
Classic guitars have a WIDER & flat fret board with more space between the strings, since classic guitar music does A LOT of individual note picking of a complicated melody line. Flat/wide makes it easier on the player. That's also why a classic guitar has the neck/body joint at the 12th fret, keeps the player's hand closer in and easier to dance all over the fret board like a jumping bean.
Acoustic and electric guitars play a lot of chords, especially where you fret string 1 AND 6 at the same time, a lot. The slight radius makes it easier and more comfortable to have the strings closer together for that long reach and not kill your hand.
If flat was more comfortable than curved, people would have bought that and you'd see more of it in the stores.
My 2 cents, not worth a plumb nickel....
We are building cbg's, no rules anything goes and is encouraged. I firmly believe that as a builder of these critters make em' any way that moves you and let someone else figure out why.
The history is cool, thanks.
I guess I'm a little slow, I still don't understand why the strings of a steel string electric guitar are arranged in a radius. I understand that the distance from the strings to the fretboard need to be roughly the same. And, the radius in the fretboard gave extra mass, thus strength, to neck. If I understand the Kid right, in a modern steel string electric guitar the radius is not necessary.
So, why do the steel string electric guitar necks still have a radius? It has to be more expensive to manufacture a curved fretboard and frets. There must be some non-structural reason. I'm curious whether the strings have a radius simply to follow the fretboard/neck radius or there is another playing or functional reason for the string radius? I suspect there is a functional reason.
Thanks all!
Fred
there you have it!
it make no odds whether flat or radius.
pointless doing all that work to get a radius when a flat will work perfectly on a CBG.
not that I'm an expert far from it but I understand what the kid said.
and there ,gentlemen is the answer i feel,cool stuff Jeff
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ok first to clear up a little misconception.. it is actually trivial to play two adjacent strings at once on a violin or one of its cousins. What the radius on the bridge and fingerboard do is make it very difficult (but not impossible) to play more than two at once, which is why triple stops in classical violin music are extremely scarce, when a violinist comes across one he must either divide the notes up with his mates or play with extra gusto, which creates tuning difficulties...
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With the guitar and other large lutes remember that they were always the poor cousin to these fellows, right up until certain important technological developments in the 20th century, chiefly in the USA. This is because they were never capable of nearly as much volume as their bowed cousins, there is an inherent tradeoff between volume and sustain. Energy is imparted to a string, which excites a soundboard of some kind, which moves some air; -> the energy quickly decays.
With a bow the player can continue to impart energy to the string, so it does not matter how quickly this energy decays.
In order to combat this guitars / mandolin etc needed to be fitted with HEAVY strings. Which called for a strong, meaty neck. Curving the face of that neck enabled it to feel smaller than it actually is, causing less player fatigue. Another way to look at this, by putting a curve on there the luthier could use more wood in the neck than he otherwise might; thereby delivering a more robust instrument. The exception to this is obvious, gut strings exert significantly less torsion on the neck, so classical and gypsy guitars could have much skinnier necks, and flat, wide fingerboards, as you've noted...
There is also of course the inherent conservatism in lutherie; from the 17th to mid 20th c it was some kind of heresy to defy the ideas of the Cremorne masters and the Amati family (Stradivarius etc) And so of course ideas from the violin family, being the pinnacle of the luthiers' art form, would flow onto its poorer cousins. You only need to look at the tremendous impact of the work of Lloyd Loar at Gibson in the 1920s and 30s (maximising Violin sensibilities in their mandos and then guitars) for evidence of this.
In the USA as jazz and blues brought guitars to focus some developments changed things. The Dopyera brothers came up with the the resonator cone, then ten or so years later a bunch of guys started experimenting with magnetic coils and amplification. These things enabled guitarists (etc) to use lighter strings.. It also brought about the Hawaiian guitar and Western swing scenes, which were both huge in their day, and reliant on electric steel guitars. nb Electric steel guitars had no radius to their strings from the very start. There is no need to wrap your hand around the neck, so it can be a table, strong as you like.
The other big technological advancement to come out of the USA was neck reinforcement, first just with a bar or tube at CF Martin, but later in an adjustable truss rod over at Gibson. This adjustment made skinnier necks feasible, -> a nut to crank to correct a twist or bend -> less need for that baseball bat neck -> less need for a fingerboard radius....
All of which leads to the ultimate in player ergonomics in modern guitars, 80s pointy machines with super skinny necks, very light strings and powerful pickups...
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do you need to radius your necks??
well are you struggling with making em skinny enough to play yet robust enough to do the job ??
hope that helps :)