Question about Tremolo bridges and fretboard radius

[jimskeet]

Hi guys
While I am building my first ever guitar ( a LP style guitar, there is a thread of mine already in the luthier's corner ) I have been modeling in CAD a couple of guitars cause we will have a CNC machine soon.

I am modeling a super strat style guitar at the moment, inspired by my Ibanez RG 2550Z guitar. I am at the point that I am looking on what tremolo bridge and locking nut will be used on this model so that I dimension the routes and fretboard accordingly. After some research on Schaller and Original floyd rose bridges I found out that the bridges have 12" radius at the saddles and that the locknuts are available at 10 and 12" radius for the schaller brand and 10, 12 and 15" for the original floyd rose brand.

So my question is what if I want to use a 16" radius on my fretboard? Can I use a 12" locknut on a 16" radius fretboard?

 

[jimskeet]

Anyone?

 

[WezV]

Generally, you want the nut, bridge and fretboard radius to match. Actually its not a perfect match as bass strings are generally set higher and the radius gets flatter as you move above the fretboard.

In reality, with the limited Floyd options, you want the nut to match the fretboard and can shim bridge saddles if needed.

There is an argument for having a slightly mismatched bridge & fretboard radius. Some say a smaller bridge radius works well, some go for a flatter bridge radius. You can get away with a lot during set-up... Worse case is a little filing of the nut/bridge slots.

Personally I still aim to match the fretboard radius wherever possible