I've been doing straight radius for years and so have countless others. Yes it works just fine. I have however been delving into compound radius boards so I am gonna sit back and watch this thread too. The way I do it is use several radius blocks to get close and then finish it off with a long heavy straight milled steal block with 80 grit sand paper about 2cm wide, I run that up and down the board on the same angle of the strings till it sands flush.

You don't really need jigs or radius blocks to do a compound radius fretboard. I use a 16" long sanding block that is 1 1/2" wide. It has 36 grit sanding belt attached to it and will remove wood in a hurry!! I shape the fingerboard with that after the neck is attached to the guitar. If you keep the block in line with the run of the strings, and check your progress with a radius gauge at three or four different spots on the fretboard as you go, you can shape a conical board in a few minutes. Once it's the right shape, just follow up with finer grits to smooth it out.

I typically make mine 14" at the nut and 20" at the other end. Sometimes I change that depending on the guitar style and the players preferences. Using a simple sanding block, it's easy to make it any shape I want.

M

This is probably a stupid question, but I'm assuming if you do make a compound radius, then at the higher frets you have to match that radius with the saddle's radius?

Or maybe the radius of the saddle should be the radius at the 12th fret?

It involves deciding what radius you want at the nut and which one you want at the saddle.

I make my guitar fretboards with a cylindrical radius and dress a compound radius into the tops of the frets.

.... If you keep the block in line with the run of the strings, ....

This is probably a stupid question, but I'm assuming if you do make a compound radius, then at the higher frets you have to match that radius with the saddle's radius?

In theory, the radius of the saddle would be greater than the radius at the end of the fingerboard. My experience is that, in practice, it doesn't work like that. I make my fingerboard 14" at the nut and 20" at the 20th fret. Theoretically, the saddle should be something like 24". I radius my saddles to 16" and it works great. If I make the saddle flatter than that the D and G strings will buzz, usually around frets 3 - 5.

This has to do with the fact that string height on the treble strings is lower than on bass strings. Imagine that you made the saddle with a 24" radius and set all the strings at the height required for the bass strings. The treble strings are too high, so you lower the high E a little, the B a little less the G even less. The D and A need about the same height as the low E so you leave them alone. Now measure the radius on the saddle and it will approximate 16" with a little "bump" near the G and D strings. This works well. Tapering the 24' radius saddle so that the high and low E strings are the right height does not.

M