Les paul style guitar with a flat radius neck?

Fortheloveofguitar

Hey all!

I'm getting back into Les Pauls at the moment. Loving that thick big sound that my strat cant give me, even with humbuckers.

Having set the les paul up i'm not at home with shredding on it should the mood take me as i cant get that nice low action because of the 12'' radius.

Can you guys recommend anything that is in the les paul shape with set neck etc that has a lovely flat radius board or a nice compound board?

Many thanks

Gassage

Yeah- Feline will make you one and it'll be stunning.

guitarfishbay

Are the frets level? You should still be able to get a low action on a 12" radius with a good setup.

I'm not sure who does a flat board Les Paul, I thought ESP would but looks like the Eclipse is also 12"..

MattFGBI

12 is pretty flat in my book. I would say there is a setup issue rather than a radius problem.

rlw

I will probably regret saying this but I am going to look at a Chapman ML-2 for that very reason

underdog

You could get a really low action on a well set up les Paul (neck angle permitting )

stonevibe

ESP Eclipse.

Sassafras

10" is about the flattest board I've got and I can get very low action on that if I wanted it.

Fortheloveofguitar

Cheers guys. Keep them coming.

I have my les Paul set up with action at 1.5mm on the bass side and 1.3mm on the treble side but it's not working for me.

My Charvel is a compound radius board 12-16'' and I have the action at 1.5mm and 1.2mm and I'm all over it for shredding but the les Paul is a real fight so must be the radius.

Bogwhoppit

My wife says 12" is a good starting point. Any more and it can cause problems with dentures...

rpr

Could have a look at Hagstrom, they generally have a 15" radius, tho I just spotted one with 12". I had a viking which had a wide -thin neck profile and 15" radius-and  reckon it was shred-worthy if someone was that way inclined, which isn't bad for a retro styled thinline.

Elwood

I've got a Tele with 9.5 inch radius and brass saddles with a great action. Very similar to that on a compound radius.

If it is not the setup then it sound like Tue Gibson is a bit of a lemon with the neck angle too steep to full match with the bridge. Did you buy it new?

A Chapman ML-2 has 13.75" radius.

FelineGuitars

We can refret a Gibson or other LP and add a bit of fallaway and compound radius-ing to the wood (and again to the fret tops too) that will give you shred happy playability.

Obviously we can do this on LPs that we make too.

Gassage

Will it djent though?

MattFGBI

So the difference is 0.1mm? It's probably more than the radius that's making the difference as that's nothing. The scale length is different and that's going to affect the fret spacing at the top end. The frets are also quite different too. And the geometry of the neck / body angle and bridge height. And the neck profiles are very different too. Basically it's way more than just fretboard radius.

Evilmags

I had a Les Paul with similar issues, and it was just the way it had been put together. I swapped it for a PRS with a 10 inch radius and could get better action.

Fortheloveofguitar

I'm liking the look of the Hagstorm Les Paul shapes and the 15'' radius would be ideal i think. Not far off the 16'' ive got on the charvel but obviously not compound but that would't matter

Fender scale too which i like more

Evilmags

Gibson do compounds on the fancy new standards IIRC.

Jeremiah

Isn't the standard TOM bridge designed with a 12" radius in mind? So if you go to a flatter fretboard but keep the same bridge you would have problems getting the action low because the bridge the outer strings would be lower than the middle strings relative to the frets. I guess you would have to have the bridge modified by filing some of the slots deeper to match the radius of the fretboard.

Fuzzdog

Fortheloveofguitar said:

I'm liking the look of the Hagstorm Les Paul shapes and the 15'' radius would be ideal i think. Not far off the 16'' ive got on the charvel but obviously not compound but that would't matter

Fender scale too which i like more

I had an Ultra Swede for a while - think that had the fastest neck I've ever had on anything, and the action went as low as anyone could possibly desire.  It made the Ibanez RG I had at the time feel like a stodgy old vintage Strat in comparison. )

Nice guitar, just not what I was looking for at the time.  Neck was immensely stable, too, which always helps with getting a silly low action.

Fortheloveofguitar

Fuzzdog said:

Fortheloveofguitar said:

I'm liking the look of the Hagstorm Les Paul shapes and the 15'' radius would be ideal i think. Not far off the 16'' ive got on the charvel but obviously not compound but that would't matter

Fender scale too which i like more

I had an Ultra Swede for a while - think that had the fastest neck I've ever had on anything, and the action went as low as anyone could possibly desire.  It made the Ibanez RG I had at the time feel like a stodgy old vintage Strat in comparison. )

Nice guitar, just not what I was looking for at the time.  Neck was immensely stable, too, which always helps with getting a silly low action.

Hey @Fuzzdog , thanks for your input. That was the exact model I'm looking at so thats a great endorsement.