Haha! The man who'd set himself up to educate Mr Armadillo would have to be either amazingly clever or amazingly stupid. I'm not sure which...

Cheers - C

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Thank you for your kind words, Lord of the Snow Leopards!

I think you have overestimated the range of my knowledge, however...certain technical/specifications have always eluded my grasp, mostly because of two things.

(1) Laziness on my part.
(2) My firm belief that it doesn't matter when, who or where the guitar comes from, what it looks like or what "specs" it has...if you like the looks, feel, and sound of the instrument, it's good.

With this tread, I just wanted to pick up a bit more knowledge about something I read every day...I had a vague understanding of radius but not how it related to neck profile.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Then only in the spirit of a chat over beer, not education...

When people discuss the size a neck feels in the hand they always mention fingerboard radius and the carve shape of the back. But I seldom see them invoking the most fundamental raw dimension, the thickness of the neck measured from the middle of the back to the middle of the front of the fingerboard. A measurement that is very easily taken with calipers.

Guitars are remarkably consistent in their shape as far as the width of the fingerboard is concerned, mostly varying by only a mil or two. And so far as my own hands are concerned the radius of the 'board is mininally important: I can switch between 7.25, 9.5, 12 and even 16 inch radii without batting an eyelid. However, it is amazing how much they can vary even within a model type as far as the front-to-back thickness is concerned - yet people rarely mention it.

Here are some useful stats on several factory guitar necks in my possession. The first measurement is the thickness at the first fret, the second is at the twelfth. Inches are in brackets:

Squier Strat - 20.65mm (0.813") - 23.40 (0.921)

MIJ Strat - 21.95 (0.864) - 25.40 (1.0)

MIA Strat - 20.90 (0.823) - 25.33 (0.997)

MIK Tele - 22.16 (0.872) - 22.88 (0.9)

Les Paul - 21.39 (0.842) - 24.81 (0.977)

Yamaha Compass Series - 21.02 (0.827) - 22.44 (0.883) (at the tenth fret)

Compare my MIA American Series Strat with the Tele in that table. That's why people find Tele necks so huge and why they are often refered to as "baseball bats". It is also fascinating how the Tele neck barely thickens at all along its length, which of course makes going up the dusty end a significantly different experience to other guitars. If we had an Ibanez Wizard neck to measure we'd find that contrast even more extreme.

Something to ponder on.

Cheers - C

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very interesting... where did you find those stats? I wonder what the specs are on the neck of my MIJ jaguar special HH. i always thought the neck felt very roomy compared to my Squier and my Teisco.

Hi zenbone: I found them using my digital calipers on the guitars themselves.

Front-to-back neck thickness is never quoted in manufacturer stats, which is no doubt why most users are unaware of it as an issue. Yet it is so important - far more so than fingerboard radius, as far as how the neck feels in your hand is concerned.

Cheers - C

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I agree that this (ignored) specification probably has more to do with the "feel and playability" of the neck.

I think I'll dig out my calipers and check my personal axes...that's a cool wrinkle into the conversation.

BTW Ceri, do you find the different radiuses (radii?) and profiles make you play differently?

As noted in my original post, each of the different necks on my guitars lend themselves to different playing styles; that doesn't mean I can't play the same thing on the different instruments, it just means I find it a nudge in another direction.

Lord, I wish I were more articulate...this would make much more sense...

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

It's a fascinating question and my own answer to it perplexes me.

I note many other players talking about fingerboard radius and fret size with strongly held preference, and yet I find my hands care little for these things. I can switch from one type of neck to another with the greatest of ease and all the usual judgements seem to have little importance to me - you know, that 7.25 is comfortable for chordal work while 9.5 or 12 is better for string bending. My fingers can tell the difference, of course; it just doesn't seem to matter very much to them.

This stuff clearly is so vital to others that I guess to not care a lot about it my fingers must be either very clever or very insensitive - and I have a strong suspiscion that it isn't the former, I'm afraid.

I find the shape and depth of the back of the neck more significant, but even then I can switch between completely different ones without a problem. For that matter, going between a Strat and a Les Paul doesn't worry me at all either - except that the heel on the LP trips me up quite often. That, and reaching for the whammy and finding it not there. Oops...!

To me this stuff is all about the richness of variety. Rather than a quest for the "perfect neck". But I'm always impressed by people to whom these things make a critical difference. Horses for course.

Cheers - C

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I agree that neck profile, etc. matters very little to me (none of my guitars--acoustics included--have similar necks), but I have found that there's necks I don't like...extremely narrow (nut width) necks confound me.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

I gotta agree with you there Ceri. I don't care so much about specific fretboard radius or neck profile. The most important for me is a fairly thick neck, I find that my hand fatigues less than on guitars with thinner necks. And I've never noticed a negligible difference in my playing from one radius to another.

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I'd like to take a swing at answering the questions and how they effect your play. Some of this is already answered, but I felt that some was incomplete (and forgive me.....my glasses are over there <points> so I may have missed something)

Radius. A smaller radius used with bending strings will require action to be higher. Think of the high e string. If you set the height to a fairly low action without bending it up and then bend, you'll get significant fret buzz as the height changes over the fretboard. Adjusting the height up until you can bend normally without buzz in all positions is actually part of how I setup my guitar. Theoretically, a Metal type guitar (15-20" radius) would make low action and setups a breeze.

Profile. This is a combination (to me) of both the shape and thickness of the neck. There are all different shapes. 3 that come to mind are a normal C shape that's sort of a squished circle. Another commone one is a V, which you can easily find by trying an Ovation acoustic. The third that I use a lot is an asymetrical which EVH type guitars have. They are slightly different on one side compared to the other, like a very, very worn neck. Some people (me included) find this to be the most comfortable neck to play. There are certainly other profiles.

Other things that are important in how the guitar plays: Neck width, neck thickness, and the frets themselves. There are various types in shape....high or low, fat or thin. Neck finish. PRS is sort of the extreme for thick, thick finishes on both the neck and fretboard. On the other end of the spectrum are tru-oil'd necks like Wolfgang or EVH or Musicman, that feel like bare wood. The distance of the e strings from the edge make a big difference to me and I've played some guitars where the high e will fall off the neck. Fingerboard edge treatment is also different, where some are very squared off while others are rolled, thus smoother. With time, the fingerboard will naturally become somewhat rolled.

that's all for now

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2002 mim Telecaster
Jimmie Vaughan Stratocaster
Mexican HSS Stratocaster
6 non-fender guitars
2 kids (not for sale)
1 wife (uh....no comment)