Curved fretboards

Swing 69

After playing a gitane D500 recently found the curve on the neck a joy and much easier to play than on a flat fretboard. (my guitar)
eg. Valse de bamboula, the end of the intro + A sect etc, theres a Gm arppegio sweep thing that at speed is hard to nail but on this thing i found it a doddle.
My question..You's jammy so's and so's wi duponts, collins etc how much of a curve is on them in comparison.
As i understand the selmer/maccaferris had the flat fingerboard.

badjazz

My Dupont MD-50 has a very light curve to the fretboard. I like more curve the smaller the nut width, and since the nut width is pretty wide on most selmacs there doesn't seem to be the need for a real pronounced curve.

Bob Holo

The vast majority of guitars don't have perfectly flat fretboards. This is the first I've heard of Selmers having a flat fretboard. Selmers didn't have the 4 aluminum inserts in the neck to keep them straight so they tended to have the opposite problem... bowing... which got worse over time.

Fingerboards might look flat, but there is at least some "relief" in them and that is normal... even instruments with no truss rods are usually made such at there is some relief. Some builders like Mike Doolin have gone so far as to say that there is an objectively determined "right" relief for a given type of guitar and so he sets his relief into fixed-truss necks and adjusts action height by using an adjustable neck joint. Having read his stuff - I gotta say - he makes his point in a very logical and compelling way. Adjustable neck joints aren't new, but his is a pretty cool impementation. Also, adjustable truss rods have only been around since ?? 1938 or something like that. So - many old guitars have either fixed support or unsupported necks.

Frank Ford has some good material for free on the Internet about relief and truss rods. http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Musicia ... tradj.html

badjazz

I thought from the first post that you were talking about the radius of the fretboard, but now I am not sure.

nwilkins

i think he is talking about radius Bob, not neck relief.

Bob Holo

D'oh...

OK...

Then my 2c on this is that I don't like wide flat soundboards - they get really hard to play - especially toward the top of the fretboard where you have weird crowded chords or thumbovers and yet the neck is at its widest and thickest... you need all the help you can get in situations like that and fretboard curvature helps.

The neck on my guitar a true Selmer width - but 2.2mm thinner in depth and then eased on the corners of the fretboard with a moderate radius... even though it's a big "manly" neck it still plays well.

Ken Bloom

I played a flat fretboard for decades but when I built my Selmac seven string Iused a 16" radius for the fretboard. I'm glad I did.It does make some of the more twisted chords easier to play. The neck is still on the beefy side but the slight amount of radius is a help.