Tune O Matic set up...

thumb55

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I'm a strat guy and I've only had a couple of guitars with a tune o matic.

Are they hard to "dial in" with a Compound Radius fretboard.  I want a recessed t.o.m. on a strat body, but I'm not sure if I want to give up the indiviual string height option.   

If I stick with a Std. Strat hardtail, can anyone recomend a high end tailpiece.  The Gotoh one looks really nice! (plated brass) and I'd probably add Graph Tech to it some day.





 
To me, at least, the radius mismatch is not noticeable.  I have two compound-radius necks with TOM bridges and they are both easy to set up.
 
In case you decide to not go with a compound radius the gibson tunomatics have a radius of 12''
 
The tune-o seldom comes new with notched saddles. The strings will slide on the saddles when bending notes, so to keep the string spacing intact the saddles should be notched during initial setup.

The tune-o is a 12" radius, so to increase the radius, the outside 4 saddles are notched deeper, to decease the radius the inside four are filed deeper. If it was an installation on my guitar, I'd notch the saddles at about 18.375 radius, which would result in close-to-uniform flattening of the string radius to match the compound radius neck (if the compound radius fretboard was extended with the same compound formula to the bridge, it would be about 18") . Some folks just go for a 16" bridge radius, some stay at 12", some don't care or can't tell.
 
for individual saddles I have a SteMac height gage and I just set each string to the same height (under the string) at the 12th fret.  This makes things pretty uniform all over the neck.

If I did a t.o.m. I'd like to use a Tone Pro's with Graph Tech saddles.  Could those be cut a hair deeper on the inner 4 strings without ruining their advantage.

 
 
I filled the inner four saddles on mine to make the radius a bit flatter. Feels good to me.
 
Me too, same as Gary. Just used a basic hardware store file. A very slight flattening of the radius is probably the most you'd want to do though - there is in fact very little real difference between 12" and 16" radius, it's hard to eyeball. And btw, it felt ok before I flattened it, it's not really necessary imho.
 
I did it because the G and D felt high to me as they went higher up the neck - it was noticeable to me anyway.
 
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