Opinion on Wraparound Bridge with T-Style Guitar

[stratamania]

Maybe if your fretboard went all the way to the bridge, but it doesn't. Whatever fret you adjust your string height (typically the 12th), that radius needs to match your bridge radius. It is a non-issue with bridges that have individually adjustable string saddles.

A compound radius is a truncated cone. So a cone has a point and a base. A compound radius fretboard (or actually more correctly called a progressive radius) starts and ends somewhere along that length of a cone, and the strings continue to the bridge, at which point the radius is greater or flatter. So to correctly set your string height at the 12 fret in an arc that will match the radius of the board at that point, or any other fret as you mention which will be a different radius, the bridge will end up with a flatter radius for optimum set up.

There are good explanations of this here at the below links.

Compound Radius: Explained - StewMac

Compound Radius: Explained

www.stewmac.com

 

[Strat Avenger]

I know that's a popular theory around here, but with a bridge that does not have individually adjustable saddles and has an 18 inch radius, and with a 10-16 inch compound radius fretboard; if you were to set your string action height for the high and low E (which is all you can do with a bridge like that) at the 12th fret (which is probably around 12 or 13 inches), the D and G strings would be too low. That's just physics.
Don't believe me? Try it and measure the string height. The strings have no idea what your fretboard radius is. They are going to be wherever they are adjusted or at whatever radius the bridge dictates. A string is not thinking about what the radius of the fretboard would be if the fretboard continued to all the way to the bridge (38th fret or whatever).

 

[stratamania]

It is not a theory, it is a fact of physics and mathematics. If I go and measure with some radius gauges the radius of a bridge that has individually adjustable saddles that have been set for optimum string height at the 12th or another fret, the bridge radius will turn out to be greater than it is at the fret where the action adjustments were made. Perhaps check your own guitars with a set of radius gauges and see what the measurements are.

Where I do agree is that a bridge that has individual saddle heights can be dialled in finer than one that has not. But often the practical difference will turn out to be negligible.

 

[Strat Avenger]

At the end of the video, the guy says that for a 7.25"-10" compound fretboard radius, the bridge radius should be 10". Not 12" or more. So it really doesn't support the notion that an 18" bridge radius is needed for a 10"-16" compound fretbord radius.
He made no mention of "if the fretboard continued all the way to the bridge, it would flatten out even more" .

 

[Hendrix]

I have done some Bridge Radius calculation for Compound Radius.

the height of the string from the surface of fingerboard must be added.
For electric guitar action, in some opinion, a good default string height at the 12th fret is typically about 6/64th of an inch (2.38mm) on the bass side and 4/64th of an inch (1.59mm) on the treble side. + height of fret

 

[stratamania]

At the end of the video, the guy says that for a 7.25"-10" compound fretboard radius, the bridge radius should be 10". Not 12" or more. So it really doesn't support the notion that an 18" bridge radius is needed for a 10"-16" compound fretbord radius.

He doesn't say that he says 10" at the 21st fret (not the bridge)

He made no mention of "if the fretboard continued all the way to the bridge, it would flatten out even more" .

No he does not mention that explicitly but the logic if you extrapolate it out means it has to flatten out more. See his explanation about stand-offs and lights on a cylinder or a cone. It is the same principle for strings between a nut and bridge.

See also post of @Hendrix above.

 

[Hendrix]

In actual application, there are more complex considerations and different elastic ranges for different strings. For example, although this is a bass analysis, it illustrates many considerations.
https://joeynaegerbasses.com/resources/fingerboard-geometry/

 

[Spud]

I hope this might be helpful. I drew it myself FYI.