7.25 radius and vintage frets, its doesn't feel much different to a 9.5,with jumbos

adampeter

How wrong could i be, spent years and years avoiding vintage radius and frets on my guitars, although never really tried them.
Sudden attack of gas saw a classic 60s jaguar and classic 60s jassmaster arrive 
There really ain't much difference once set up, bends no problem.
Feel like ive been missing out all these years 

munckee

I bought a roadworn tele didn;t even realise it was a 7.25, ordered a 7.25 radius tele neck with vintage frets which felt similar to my strat which I thought was 7.25 but turned out to be a 9.5 and I had no idea my 335 a like was a 12.

radius schmadius!

photek

Should this be in the gear section rather than classifieds?

It depends on what you are playing really, even a well set up 7.25'' is more difficult to play fast on in my experience, not that it's a bad thing. I had one of my 7.25 strats refretted with jumbos and he radiused the frets to 9.5, much easier to play and do big accurate bends on

Hydra19

Yeah, I don't see why this should be in the classifieds, what's he selling?

I'm also wary of 7.2 radiuses, but have one on my MIJ Jaguar and find nothing wrong with it, but since then I have started playing different guitars and none of them have 7.25, closest are the strats with 9.5 and I think that's where I'd like it. 
I do prefer flatter radius and my Jackson soloist is great in that regard!

There are rumours 7.25 are harder to bend on, but remember there are many legendary guitarists that had no problem with 7.25 and bending, like Gary Moore, Dave Murray and Jimi Hendrix. I think Stevie Ray's guitars were flattened due to playing and refrets but there is no reason other than preference to choose one over the other.

adampeter

Sorry people, this shouldn't be in the classifieds

thegummy

When I bought my Strat I liked the Daphne blue classic but was put off by the radius so ended up getting a much more expensive model.

I've got a bass with 7.5 and it definitely seems to feel different, never tried on a guitar though.

kswilson89

Yeah I've never really had an issue with either, definitely no problems with bends. I think you will just get used to whatever you're playing.

adampeter

I'm kinda preferring a higher action as i'm getting older as well, don't know whats up with me 

thermionic

All my Fenders are 7.25” radius and they play fine. Might encounter a little choking at the dusty end on one or two, but nothing to bother me. Takes a little effort to get them playing that well, but that’s all part of the fun for me. My Rickenbacker and Epiphone now feels almost concave in comparison.

PonchoGreg

To be honest I haven't played a 9.5 in ages but I have (and love) a couple of 7.25s - both with 6105s, and they did need a bit of fallaway and flatter radiusing at the top to play a bit more effortlessly. Nothing wrong with 7.25 and vintage wire though, especially when not going apeshit on bends. Just a different feel, and arguably smoother to slide around.

Now, going from a 12-16 compound radius straight to one of these IS a bit of a shock to the system. 

TeleMaster

I have had most 7.25’s re-radiused when a refret is due. Much nicer for me!

Blueingreen

I played a 7.25" (Tokai) for years because I didn't think about whether there were other options.  As soon as I bought a Strat with a flatter radius and spent a week or two getting used to it I knew there was no going back.  I'm not going to claim the flatter radius made me a better player, but for me the difference in ease of playing was stark.  The Tokai became my back-up for a while until I realised it felt so uncomfortable by comparison with my no 1 that I'd never want to play it.  I bought another flat radius Strat as my number 2 and sold the Tokai.

Schnozz

Can't get on with 7.25" and vintage frets, but if the frets are bigger then I can tolerate the radius (a bit).

thegummy

Anyone know why Leo decided on the 7.25 radius in the first place?

I believe existing guitars were much flatter so it does seem like there must have been a reason. Might well be to do with ease or cost of manufacturing rather than playing.

rossi

I didnt actually get on with Fenders in my ignorance  until  I  got a 9.5 by accident on a Squier 51, the original version.I didnt really know I didnt get on with 7.5 I just didnt seem to gel with them .I even  prefer a 12 to a 9.5 to go even further down the road  and medium jumbos .I do like a low action .

Michael84

Bought a 57 RI strat in 2003 that has a 7.25" and came with vintage frets. Bends were chocking, it was hard to do vibrato and practice scales. Within a month I had jumbo frets installed and ended up my main guitar for years. The tone got fatter and it became playable.

Ideally, I prefer a 10" on a fender scale guitar. Would never buy one with less than 9"

Michael84

thegummy said:

Anyone know why Leo decided on the 7.25 radius in the first place?

I believe existing guitars were much flatter so it does seem like there must have been a reason. Might well be to do with ease or cost of manufacturing rather than playing.

It has to be that the more curvature there is the easier it is to play chords which is what guitars where used for in the 50s.

crunchman

I like 7.25".  You do spend a lot of your time playing chords and that's definitely easier on 7.25".

Had an interesting decision today. I'm in the middle of building a guitar at Crimson and had to decide on radius.  Ended up going with 7.25".  Doing the frets tomorrow.

Flattop

9.5 with medium jumbo frets all all day for me , 7.25with vintage frets real hard works, string bending, nice for chords etc thoug

Neil

I prefer 7.25" on Strats as it feels more Fender-y to me.

ICBM

I’m one of those who doesn’t really notice much - I don’t like anything flatter than about 12” radius or larger than medium-jumbo frets, but any other combination is fine.

All fingerboards should be compound radius anyway - not just for playing ease, but simple geometry - because the neck tapers, if the radius is constant the edge of the board would have to be lower as you go up the neck. (Or the fingerboard thicker.) If it’s not, the radius must be slightly larger at the body than the nut. Compound radius is just specifying that accurately and exaggerating it slightly.