Fretboard radius

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ulmis

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Hi,
I am building my second uke, first one was a stewmac kit, this is a replica where I am doing all parts myself from scratch.

For some reason I decided to make a radius fretboard. Wood is ebony.2013-06-27-1252.jpg

I noticed soon that this is hard work, it took me 3 hours to sand the 9,5´ radius. Is there an easier way?
 
If you rough in your outline by power sanding then finish it off with your radius block using progressively finer grades of sandpaper (starting with 80 grit) it will cut your time down to an acceptable 15 minutes.

If you're not going into production it's a reasonable compromise between your much slower technique and spending a bunch of time and money on building a machine that sits around and collects dust about 99% of the time.
 
Just gotta remove a lot of wood to make a 9.5" radius. Sand it, plane it, router it...depends what tools you have
 
Takes about 5 minutes with a good sharp plane and a radius sanding block. My question is why? I do not understand this idea for a largely strummed instrument where the benefit of having the strings in a flat plane is obvious....
 
Pete Howlett said:
Takes about 5 minutes with a good sharp plane and a radius sanding block. My question is why? I do not understand this idea for a largely strummed instrument where the benefit of having the strings in a flat plane is obvious....
Click to expand...
Pete, Maybe I'm dense but I'm not understanding what's "obvious" about the benefit of having the strings in a flat plane. Perhaps you could educate me a bit on that one. Thanks!
 
You could compound radius it and still have the strings on a flat across plane at the bridge. They'd arc a bit between fingerboard end and saddle.

The point that Pete made was with regard to strumming technique which works best with the strings all on the same plane; the arc is nice for the fretting hand if you do a lot of barre chords.

However, strumming is not the only way to play uke.

This is one of those "different strokes" issues...
 
What Rick said - if you fingerpick and use barre chords exclusively then I'd see the radius as 'obvious'...Having the strings arc out to flat would also make sense.
 
I finally got to try a uke with a fretboard radius, and for me, the difference was minimal. maybe a little easier to barre, but not much.
 
I totally agree with that. I don't play Uke (yet), but I build and play other traditionally flat-boarded instruments (banjo and mandolin family instruments) and I find a slight radius to have a very slightly better feel; even if the differance is minimal I think it's probably worth doing. Having played both flat and radiused versions of these I can't say a flat board (or radiused for that matter) has any obvious advantage, I think the radius is just to little to percieve an advantage either way. That's why I asked for an explanation, as it wouldn't be obvious from my standpoint.
 
I know a very successful company has this as their marque yet I remain unconvinced particularly when the radius is extreme....
 
Rick Turner said:
You could compound radius it and still have the strings on a flat across plane at the bridge. They'd arc a bit between fingerboard end and saddle.

The point that Pete made was with regard to strumming technique which works best with the strings all on the same plane; the arc is nice for the fretting hand if you do a lot of barre chords.

However, strumming is not the only way to play uke.

This is one of those "different strokes" issues...
Click to expand...

Rick (or anyone),
I really want to understand what you are saying here, but I am not getting it....

If the fretboard has a compound radius.... Say 9.5" at the nut and a softer (or flat) radius at the end of the fretboard nearest the bridge.... This would dictate a radiused nut to match the fretboard radius so that the action is consistent across all four strings? I can picture that. But then the end of the fretboard is flat, and presumably the bridge is as well ( to facilitate a single plane across the strings where one would strum?)? How does that not play funky with the consistency of the action at the higher frets?
Sorry if this is a stupid question or if I am not making myself clear - I just can't picture it. Is that the arc you mentioned?
 
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