7.25 radius

You got loads of good insight already. One point that wasn't mentioned is that the strings you use and your technique also have a huge impact on whether your bends will choke or not.

Assuming that your tech will do a good job with relief, frets etc… you'll have to do a little bit of trial and error yourself to see where the sweet-spot is in terms of action.

PS: 7'25, and doing 2 whole step bends no problem… but I do use 11s and like my action around 2 mm

 

i have a 7.25'' soft V neck on my classic 50's and I like it a lot , for the action i have tried to set it to 1.5mm for high E and 1.8mm for the low E but it didn't feel well and nots would choke on the high strings , then i have tried a different strategy , i set up the action on the 12th fret to about 2mm and i have tried to play like that it was better but after i have raised the Hight E just a tad more the guitar plays really well and i don't fret out any more across the whole neck .
i know that the action seams a bit high but for 7.25" it feels and sounds the best .
from my experience low action on vintage radius with vintage frets its not recommended , for low action you will need a more modern neck profile and bigger frets

 

‘I agree. A slightly higher action makes bending easier.

 

I really dislike a super low action. I set mine up so they don't buzz or choke, and that's good enough. I also dislike vintage frets; fat and chunky and a bit worn in for me.

 

Gilmour used the 7.25" radius neck on his candy apple red strat.. I want to get one myself but am having a jolly hard time locating one.. the neck I have now is more than adequate.. until I read your post and now im of the opinion that I don't want a 7.25" radius neck.. if choking occurs because of the radius and frets need levelling to prevent it your essentially reducing the radius of the neck, was 7.25" a bad idea to start with??

 

7.25 is a little bit too much for me.
I guess the quality of the neck is important too.

My new 9.5" strat neck is perfect IMO

 

I have both and like both. I like the action a bit high so my chords and lead lines are clean and clear no matter where I play on the neck.

 

The answer is that the radius of the saddles need to match the radius of the fingerboard. All these other numbers are mostly meaningless.

 

Hi, @Adf91081

Happy the guitar is comfy setup now!
I would consider the Seymour Duncans it has as an upgrade

 

My avri 59 has an 7.25. Absolutely love the feel of the neck. No problems with big bends anywhere along the neck. Maybe a shim would do the job. Had a standard 9.5 for years with adjustable neck angle, but couldn’t get it right and sold it. God luck!

 

Being a newbie to the 7.25 radius, what should you expect? Expect to appreciate your Les Paul even more. Expect having your action higher than you like to be able to bend notes without fretting out. And, as this radius is almost always paired with tiny frets, expect string bending to also be obstructed by fingerboard friction. I didn't know any other radius or fret size, but when it was explained to me in the 70s why my friend's Les Paul simply played better than my Tele and my Strat, there was no turning back. Is was reworked necks and aftermarket necks from then on out. I will never see why people prefer something that simply doesn't work as well as it could.

 

That 7.25 radius is from an era when there wasnt any string bending and ther werent any light gauge string sets with a plain G string. Its just that folks kind of deal with the radius. I’ve grown REALLY accustomed to it myself. The flattest radius on a Fender that feels “right” to me is 9.5.

 

Try it before you buy it; if you are used to 9.5 to 12 radius guitars (I have 3 les pauls, a tele, and a rick) you may find yourself searching for the high e string which is much lower than it would be on a flatter neck.

I posted not long ago that I had purchased my 1st strat and at the time I had never heard of neck radius (I know, sue me!) I have 3 les pauls that are 10 and 12, a rickenbacker that's 10, and a tele that's 9.5. I wondered why my strat was fretting out on bends, and why I was searching for the high e string on leads because it was lower than the rest of the strings. The replies I got were "it isn't set up correctly" and "it was the choice John Mayer, Jimi Hendrix, etc " and basically "this is a great neck and there's something wrong with you". The simple explanation is that 7.25 isn't my cup of tea, and I much prefer the flatter neck radius. I love the sound and feel of a strat, and I am looking for a hard tail with a flatter radius. If you are a thumb wrap player, it's likely fantastic, but my short crooked thumb will barely mute the low e, and certainly won't fret it. I'll stick to the flatter radius.

I didn't even know what neck radius was until I bought my 1st strat and wondered why it was fretting out on bends and the high E string was lower than the other strings and my finger was looking for it. Having 4 acoustics with flat necks, 3 Les Pauls with 10-12 radius, a tele with 9.5 and a rickenbacker with 12, I had no ideas that a really curved neck radius could be a problem for some players. When I posted my comments on 7.25 to the group, it was not received positively. Replies were "7.25 was good enough for Mayer, Hendrix, etc (if I could play like those guys, it wouldn't matter what I was playing) to "you don't have it set up right, your luthier doesn't know what he's doing, you don't know how to play it, your string heights are wrong, etc, etc. It's the only guitar I ever bought that needed a re-education to play. I never even noticed this stuff until I bought my 7.25 strat. It ain't my cup of tea. It's a beautiful guitar, plays well, and sounds great. It does feels great fretting barre chords, but in my case, flatter necks are much more comfortable.

 

If you don’t have a heavy hand and don’t bend too much, you could get away with it. I’d say that would be on the low action side for what I do with my tele at 7.25 radius with vintage style frets.

I have probably a little under .10 relief. Action approx 1.75 treble side and just over 2mm bass side. I use a radius gauge to fine tune things. No fret outs or buzz.

 

I wonder how many people can say a neck is 7.25 or 9.5 without knowing the model of the guitar or using a gauge.

 

I just got my '79 Strat refretted and the tech used similar specs: 0.029 nut, 0.011 relief, 1/16" action (a little higher on the low E). I don't have any problem fretting out. I also I floated the trem, and now the 3rd string has to go almost to the 5th string to get to pitch. I never really liked how it played before, but it turns out the frets were low (~.030), with with the new jumbo frets, it's great. For reference, I have a Tele with 10" and a Les Paul (with I don't know what), and I pretty much like whichever one I'm playing. I never thought about any of this until he asked me if I wanted to change the radius along with the refret. Glad I didn't.