What next with this Floyd (Gotoh)?

Frogman

Frogman

New member
Most people would likely be perfectly complacent with this Charvel as is. I, however, am not.

I cannot seem to get the action right.
The high E is much higher than it should be.

12-16” compound radius
Gotoh GE1996T = 14” radius

I figured 18-20” would be right for the bridge. So I shimmed the A and B with 1, and the E’s with 2. Lower that down and…..nope, not right. I took the high E shims completely out and it’s STILL high.

Something else is at play.
I thought the nut could be the culprit, as the R4 is 10” IIRC??
To get my Gotoh nut to fit, I’d have to plug and rest i’ll the holes as it’s not centered.

Ideas?
 
How's the action at the NUT? I have had minor manufacturing defects with locking nuts' slots....

Btw I'd get a radius gauge. 14" vs 16" over the span of 6 strings is such a small difference in measurement that I wouldn't eyeball it.

Also - and sorry for asking obvious, I mean no harm - but are your saddles in correct order? They should have the numbers 0 (highest) or 1 or 2 (lowest) on them and If I recall well they should go from e to E like 210012. Regardles of numbers, when you put them side by side on a flat surface, you should clearly see an "arch" with D and G being the tallest, B and A next and the two Es the lowest.
 
This /\ I kinda assumed since you were talking about shims and radius you were aware of this, if not, I would remove all the shims and go back to zero. I would think the stock radius for the Gotoh would work fine with your neck, if not, the shimming should be minimal. If you are going to get into shimming individual saddles, I would recommend a radius gauge instead of guessing. If it was set up, I might measure individual string heights at the 12th fret, but is sounds like the original setup is lost(?).

I'm a little lost as you only mention the high E string, are the other strings good?
 
Have you tried adjusting the high-e side of the bridge lower as a whole? You didn't mention that, if so.

Also, I'm with the other guys...start by resetting the radius and making sure the saddles are in the correct order.
 
nexion218 said:
Also - and sorry for asking obvious, I mean no harm - but are your saddles in correct order? They should have the numbers 0 (highest) or 1 or 2 (lowest) on them and If I recall well they should go from e to E like 210012. Regardles of numbers, when you put them side by side on a flat surface, you should clearly see an "arch" with D and G being the tallest, B and A next and the two Es the lowest.
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Ha. was wondering the same thing. I've had that happen.

Funny aside -someone changed my Tele string (with modern flat black graphtec saddle) real fast, in the dark during an unexpected string break, where I need the Tele on the next song.... anyways in the hurry in the dark, he accidenally flipped the saddle upside down and strung it, but with flat black graphtec saddles -you cant tell without really inspecting it closely -

So I played the next 2 songs with a Tele that had a 1st string that had a sitar like ghost note when I played which was kind of cool.:)
 
Baring everything else checks out post reset of the saddles without shims, a slim shim at the front of the neck pocket would tilt the neck a little more lowering the action. How’s the relief of the truss rod? Check that too.
 
ErikH said:
Baring everything else checks out post reset of the saddles without shims, a slim shim at the front of the neck pocket would tilt the neck a little more lowering the action. How’s the relief of the truss rod? Check that too.
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Thanks.

Truss rod is good.

I even did a full fret dress and crown (the new Fret Dagger 2.0 is awesome btw!).

Action at the nut is pretty good. It could be a little lower for me personally. I guess I could fill in the nut holes and redrill for the GHL-2, but I want to seriously avoid that if possible.

I will try the neck pocket shim next. Bridge posts have a lot of travel IIRC, so that might do the trick.
 
devastone said:
This /\ I kinda assumed since you were talking about shims and radius you were aware of this, if not, I would remove all the shims and go back to zero. I would think the stock radius for the Gotoh would work fine with your neck, if not, the shimming should be minimal. If you are going to get into shimming individual saddles, I would recommend a radius gauge instead of guessing. If it was set up, I might measure individual string heights at the 12th fret, but is sounds like the original setup is lost(?).

I'm a little lost as you only mention the high E string, are the other strings good?
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Gotoh radius with no shims is 14”. I have radius gauges too.
To answer someone else’s question, yes as it currently sits, if I lower the high-E post anymore, it’s too low elsewhere. I might not have it flat enough yet. It is kinda hard to get best accurate reading with radius gauges on the saddles.
 
Frogman said:
Thanks.

Truss rod is good.

I even did a full fret dress and crown (the new Fret Dagger 2.0 is awesome btw!).

Action at the nut is pretty good. It could be a little lower for me personally. I guess I could fill in the nut holes and redrill for the GHL-2, but I want to seriously avoid that if possible.

I will try the neck pocket shim next. Bridge posts have a lot of travel IIRC, so that might do the trick.
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Was thinking this one over a little more. You have a 12-16" radius neck and a 14" radius bridge. The issue is the bridge is not flat enough. Think about it. The compound radius neck is like part of a cone. The nut being the tip of the cone and the 22nd or 24th fret the end of the cone. As you get further away from the tip of the cone, the radius gets flatter. So, what you need to do is set your bridge for probably an 18" radius. It might be OK with it at 16". This may mean different saddles to achieve this without shimming up the outside saddles to accomplish this. The Gotoh Floyd radius is better suited for a 9.5-12" radius or a flat 12" radius neck.
 
ErikH said:
Was thinking this one over a little more. You have a 12-16" radius neck and a 14" radius bridge. The issue is the bridge is not flat enough. Think about it. The compound radius neck is like part of a cone. The nut being the tip of the cone and the 22nd or 24th fret the end of the cone. As you get further away from the tip of the cone, the radius gets flatter. So, what you need to do is set your bridge for probably an 18" radius. It might be OK with it at 16". This may mean different saddles to achieve this without shimming up the outside saddles to accomplish this. The Gotoh Floyd radius is better suited for a 9.5-12" radius or a flat 12" radius neck.
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In theory I totally agree. Spot on with the cone and all, the bridge should indeed be a bit flatter than what the end of the neck is. But would that "cone" really flatten another 2-4 inches in radius over the length between the end of the neck and the bridge? Too lazy to do the maths... LOL
 
Frogman said:
It continues to get flatter….
If that neck were 30+ frets, it would be 12”-20ish”
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Yes, if it continued, but it doesn't, it is 16" when the fretboard stops so making the bridge radius flatter is raising the high and low E strings relative to the ACTUAL exisitng fretboard so it's going the wrong way. In fact, the 14" sock radius would lower them, I would start there, and if necessary very slight shim the E(s), B, and A strings to no more than a 16" radius, more will be working against you. I think you are over thinking, it's not a trig problem.
 
ErikH said:
Was thinking this one over a little more. You have a 12-16" radius neck and a 14" radius bridge. The issue is the bridge is not flat enough. Think about it. The compound radius neck is like part of a cone. The nut being the tip of the cone and the 22nd or 24th fret the end of the cone. As you get further away from the tip of the cone, the radius gets flatter. So, what you need to do is set your bridge for probably an 18" radius. It might be OK with it at 16". This may mean different saddles to achieve this without shimming up the outside saddles to accomplish this. The Gotoh Floyd radius is better suited for a 9.5-12" radius or a flat 12" radius neck.
Click to expand...

Right, yeah I mentioned that a couple times.
I first shimmed it to ~16in
1 shim each for E-s only
Not quite, so I went to ~18in
2 shims each for E&A
1 shim each for A & B

Everything but the high-E sat better.
So I removed 1 of the two shims from the high-E.
I may have actually removed both, leaving the other strings’ shim(s) in place.

My Kramer Baretta Specials both have incredibly low, perfect (for me) action!
Maybe because of the straight 14in radius, matching the bridge AND nut.

Maybe a compound radius neck inherently cannot have the same exact action height across all strings (at least guitars with less adjustable bridges and nuts —like a floyd) In which case, maybe I am borderline unrealistic.

I will see if I can get some pics when I get the kids down.

For giggles here is the Baretta. Still have to route the white one. They are both very resonant (big brass and big steel blocksI bought them to give them to my boys when they are older. In the meantime, they are jamming the crap out of Ratt, Ozzy and VH.
I will probably buy more LOL

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Sweet guitars. Yeah, with compound radius, some compromise has to be made. I have two Warmoth necks, both 10-16” radius. I love how they play. They won’t get action as low as a straight radius but they are comfortable.
 
ErikH said:
Sweet guitars. Yeah, with compound radius, some compromise has to be made. I have two Warmoth necks, both 10-16” radius. I love how they play. They won’t get action as low as a straight radius but they are comfortable.
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Compound radius should provide for lower action. That just comes from the cone geometry you mentioned: since the strings spread as they go toward the bridge, the radius of the "cone" gets bigger and a fixed radius board's edges get "farther" from the strings as you go up the neck. So having the board and frets follow that spread should result in better action especially high up the neck. Though we"re talking about such minuscule details that I doubt I could tell apart 16" fixed from a 12"-16" compund. I never tried doing it, I can imagine though that doing a compound radius properly requires experience and it's easy to make it a hot mess...
 
nexion218 said:
Compound radius should provide for lower action. That just comes from the cone geometry you mentioned: since the strings spread as they go toward the bridge, the radius of the "cone" gets bigger and a fixed radius board's edges get "farther" from the strings as you go up the neck. So having the board and frets follow that spread should result in better action especially high up the neck. Though we"re talking about such minuscule details that I doubt I could tell apart 16" fixed from a 12"-16" compund. I never tried doing it, I can imagine though that doing a compound radius properly requires experience and it's easy to make it a hot mess...
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Yes, it should. But think about this. If you have it really low for the flatter radius up high, then bending notes at the lower fret end of the neck could fret out, or the action may not be comfortable with the rounder radius. At the same time, setting it for the rounder radius will give it slightly higher action on the middle strings at the upper frets with the flatter radius. That is where the compromise comes in. I set the action on mine based on how it feels around 10th to 14th fret. The lower strings are a touch higher than the high strings. The ring out better that way with how I play. A good fret dressing makes all the difference in how a compound radius neck is set up too. I found that out when I had a local tech work his magic on my old Frankenstrat.

This explains it really well. See the "Setup Differences" section. The graduate string action across the fretboard is the compromise I'm referring to. On a single radius fretboard, you can set them to the radius of the fretboard itself. Not so much with compound.

https://hazeguitars.com/blog/compou...xt=Ta da!-,Compound radius.,of tea, go for it.
 
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Another thing to consider, if you are going to work out the radius that it would be if it continued, what is the radius of the nut? If you want the string to track "perfectly" they need to follow the contour the whole distance.

Good luck, what kind of action are you shooting for? My electrics are all ~1/16" (1.6mm) at the 12th fret and I've never had trouble getting that. I can't imagine anything lower than that, in fact I've been raising them some, a little resistance turns out to be a good thing.
 
ErikH said:
Yes, it should. But think about this. If you have it really low for the flatter radius up high, then bending notes at the lower fret end of the neck could fret out, or the action may not be comfortable with the rounder radius. At the same time, setting it for the rounder radius will give it slightly higher action on the middle strings at the upper frets with the flatter radius. That is where the compromise comes in. I set the action on mine based on how it feels around 10th to 14th fret. The lower strings are a touch higher than the high strings. The ring out better that way with how I play. A good fret dressing makes all the difference in how a compound radius neck is set up too. I found that out when I had a local tech work his magic on my old Frankenstrat.

This explains it really well. See the "Setup Differences" section. The graduate string action across the fretboard is the compromise I'm referring to. On a single radius fretboard, you can set them to the radius of the fretboard itself. Not so much with compound.

https://hazeguitars.com/blog/compou...xt=Ta da!-,Compound radius.,of tea, go for it.
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Haze Guitars blog is AWESOME, thanks for reminding me! Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would have a graduate string action for fixed radius too. As the Haze blog says (and you too ;)): "as you would with any setup". The lower strings need a little more space to ring out, thaat's a given, not a function of the radius. So I see no extra compromise for the compound . If the bridge radius is set with the compound board in mind, the strings just simply don't have any other choice but to track the compound board, methinks.
 
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