Would you change a radius on a Fender Custom Shop Strat?

soma1975

Make it work for you. It's hardly a '59 burst.

lovestrat74

This ^^^ If you don't like it you can always sell it to @Barnezy ;

rossi

Its just a musical instrument not a old master .its meant to be played so do what you like .

fretfinder

Barnezy said:

RaymondLin said:

Barnezy said:

I'm in the same boat. All CS's seem to come with bloody 9.5" radius', apart from the Time Machine's and are so rare. I don't understand... Everyone bangs on about how lovely a vintage Strat is to play etc, and people pay £15k+ to get one, yet they change the radius for supposedly era specific CS Strats? 

My Silver Sky has a 7.25" radius and I much prefer it. But I like the Strat sound, so want a Strat with that radius.

My plan is to wait for a 59 AVRI in the colour I want and then sell my CS on. Don't change your radius, unless you plan to keep the guitar forever. Firstly it'll cost money to have it done that you won't recoup, it'll devalue it and will make it harder to sell, because there is some belief that 7.25" is bad. All that "my bends choke out" rubbish.

Wait, they put 7.25" in the Mexican Roadworn and the new Vintera but they don't put it in most of the CS?

Bizzare. 

I just don't understand why Fender don't sell a range of vintage correct guitars, likr Gobson do, instead of all these hybrids. 7.25" rosewood board, vintage frets, nitro finish, right knob font, etc. Surely there is a market for this?

Because Gibson got the board radius and fretsize right on their original 59 LPs! 
Manufacturers generally provide the products that most of their customers want, hence the vast majority of modern Fenders have a flatter board radius and bigger frets than the vintage guitars originally had. And many vintage Fenders have actually had their boards flattened a bit anyway during refrets, and if you see a vintage Fender that has been refretted, almost invariably it will have been done with bigger frets - presumably because the owner wanted an improved playing experience. And before @chris78 says it, many early 50s Nocasters/Teles did have 9.5” radius boards or similar, according to Nacho’s excellent book.

downbytheriver

Get a neck made for it to your exact spec. Keep the original neck. When you sell it (and you will sell it otherwise you wouldn’t give a toss about modding it) put the original neck back on. You will then have a perfect neck for the next strat you love/hate. Repeat ad infinitum. Put whatever logo you want on the new neck, you aren't Going to sell it. Nothing else makes sense. 

crunchman

Barnezy said:

RaymondLin said:

Barnezy said:

I'm in the same boat. All CS's seem to come with bloody 9.5" radius', apart from the Time Machine's and are so rare. I don't understand... Everyone bangs on about how lovely a vintage Strat is to play etc, and people pay £15k+ to get one, yet they change the radius for supposedly era specific CS Strats? 

My Silver Sky has a 7.25" radius and I much prefer it. But I like the Strat sound, so want a Strat with that radius.

My plan is to wait for a 59 AVRI in the colour I want and then sell my CS on. Don't change your radius, unless you plan to keep the guitar forever. Firstly it'll cost money to have it done that you won't recoup, it'll devalue it and will make it harder to sell, because there is some belief that 7.25" is bad. All that "my bends choke out" rubbish.

Wait, they put 7.25" in the Mexican Roadworn and the new Vintera but they don't put it in most of the CS?

Bizzare. 

I just don't understand why Fender don't sell a range of vintage correct guitars, likr Gobson do, instead of all these hybrids. 7.25" rosewood board, vintage frets, nitro finish, right knob font, etc. Surely there is a market for this?

I suspect they are losing sales to the PRS SIlver Sky at the moment.  If I was looking for a Strat, I wouldn't want to pay Custom Shop prices, and most Custom Shops at dealers are 9.5" radius anyway.  The American Original is 9.5" as well.

Hopefully they will reintroduce some kind of AVRI.

LastMantra

Didn't you change your mind about your other guitar anyway...or was that someone else?

RaymondLin

crunchman said:

Barnezy said:

RaymondLin said:

Barnezy said:

I'm in the same boat. All CS's seem to come with bloody 9.5" radius', apart from the Time Machine's and are so rare. I don't understand... Everyone bangs on about how lovely a vintage Strat is to play etc, and people pay £15k+ to get one, yet they change the radius for supposedly era specific CS Strats? 

My Silver Sky has a 7.25" radius and I much prefer it. But I like the Strat sound, so want a Strat with that radius.

My plan is to wait for a 59 AVRI in the colour I want and then sell my CS on. Don't change your radius, unless you plan to keep the guitar forever. Firstly it'll cost money to have it done that you won't recoup, it'll devalue it and will make it harder to sell, because there is some belief that 7.25" is bad. All that "my bends choke out" rubbish.

Wait, they put 7.25" in the Mexican Roadworn and the new Vintera but they don't put it in most of the CS?

Bizzare. 

I just don't understand why Fender don't sell a range of vintage correct guitars, likr Gobson do, instead of all these hybrids. 7.25" rosewood board, vintage frets, nitro finish, right knob font, etc. Surely there is a market for this?

I suspect they are losing sales to the PRS SIlver Sky at the moment.  If I was looking for a Strat, I wouldn't want to pay Custom Shop prices, and most Custom Shops at dealers are 9.5" radius anyway.  The American Original is 9.5" as well.

Hopefully they will reintroduce some kind of AVRI.

So off the shelve at the moment chances are you either get a Vintera or a Silver Sky?

crunchman

RaymondLin said:

crunchman said:

Barnezy said:

RaymondLin said:

Barnezy said:

I'm in the same boat. All CS's seem to come with bloody 9.5" radius', apart from the Time Machine's and are so rare. I don't understand... Everyone bangs on about how lovely a vintage Strat is to play etc, and people pay £15k+ to get one, yet they change the radius for supposedly era specific CS Strats? 

My Silver Sky has a 7.25" radius and I much prefer it. But I like the Strat sound, so want a Strat with that radius.

My plan is to wait for a 59 AVRI in the colour I want and then sell my CS on. Don't change your radius, unless you plan to keep the guitar forever. Firstly it'll cost money to have it done that you won't recoup, it'll devalue it and will make it harder to sell, because there is some belief that 7.25" is bad. All that "my bends choke out" rubbish.

Wait, they put 7.25" in the Mexican Roadworn and the new Vintera but they don't put it in most of the CS?

Bizzare. 

I just don't understand why Fender don't sell a range of vintage correct guitars, likr Gobson do, instead of all these hybrids. 7.25" rosewood board, vintage frets, nitro finish, right knob font, etc. Surely there is a market for this?

I suspect they are losing sales to the PRS SIlver Sky at the moment.  If I was looking for a Strat, I wouldn't want to pay Custom Shop prices, and most Custom Shops at dealers are 9.5" radius anyway.  The American Original is 9.5" as well.

Hopefully they will reintroduce some kind of AVRI.

So off the shelve at the moment chances are you either get a Vintera or a Silver Sky?

Or a second hand AVRI.

Jonathanthomas83

Which is piss poor, if you ask me. I bloody love my AVRI and wish to god they'd bring them back.

RaymondLin

crunchman said:

RaymondLin said:

crunchman said:

Barnezy said:

RaymondLin said:

Barnezy said:

I'm in the same boat. All CS's seem to come with bloody 9.5" radius', apart from the Time Machine's and are so rare. I don't understand... Everyone bangs on about how lovely a vintage Strat is to play etc, and people pay £15k+ to get one, yet they change the radius for supposedly era specific CS Strats? 

My Silver Sky has a 7.25" radius and I much prefer it. But I like the Strat sound, so want a Strat with that radius.

My plan is to wait for a 59 AVRI in the colour I want and then sell my CS on. Don't change your radius, unless you plan to keep the guitar forever. Firstly it'll cost money to have it done that you won't recoup, it'll devalue it and will make it harder to sell, because there is some belief that 7.25" is bad. All that "my bends choke out" rubbish.

Wait, they put 7.25" in the Mexican Roadworn and the new Vintera but they don't put it in most of the CS?

Bizzare. 

I just don't understand why Fender don't sell a range of vintage correct guitars, likr Gobson do, instead of all these hybrids. 7.25" rosewood board, vintage frets, nitro finish, right knob font, etc. Surely there is a market for this?

I suspect they are losing sales to the PRS SIlver Sky at the moment.  If I was looking for a Strat, I wouldn't want to pay Custom Shop prices, and most Custom Shops at dealers are 9.5" radius anyway.  The American Original is 9.5" as well.

Hopefully they will reintroduce some kind of AVRI.

So off the shelve at the moment chances are you either get a Vintera or a Silver Sky?

Or a second hand AVRI.

Or a 2nd hand Roadworn...

but i am talking more new off the shelf.

poopot

Its not the Turin shroud... it’s a guitar... have at it with some tools!!!!.

The world won’t end because you modify a fender neck!!!!

mburekenge

Go for it. My cs tele came without a rolled board so i got the Stanley blade out.

crunchman

The best sounding guitar I ever played had a drastically shaved down neck.  WIth a shaved down neck, and a refinish, it was relatively affordable for a late 50's Tele.

grungebob

Your only asking as you must think you’re going to sell it? Otherwise you’d do it no questions asked. 

Jonathanthomas83

grungebob said:

Your only asking as you must think you’re going to sell it? Otherwise you’d do it no questions asked. 

It's up for sale already. But sellers remorse and all that.

grungebob

Jonathanthomas83 said:

grungebob said:

Your only asking as you must think you’re going to sell it? Otherwise you’d do it no questions asked. 

It's up for sale already. But sellers remorse and all that.

In that case no, move on buy one you love (for now)

bobbatone

I'd say if the guitar sounds and looks how you want, but it really is just the radius that bothers you then get the radius changed.

For me there's a substaintial difference in feel between a 7.25 & 9.5 radius and having owned both the 7.25 works alot better for me. In fact I sold a very good strat due to the 9.5 radius and in hindsight I should have just had the radius changed.

My current Strat is one of those rare custom shop 60's reissues that came stock with a 7.25 radius so that has saved me 'some' bother. However I still plan to change something as I can't be doing with the massive frets either! I think it's the combiantion of flatter radius and big frets that feels especially wrong to me.

Personally I have no issue changing any aspect on a guitar if that's what I felt would suit me best in the long run. I also would't worry too much about the re-sale value of a C.S Fender (I feel they have poor re-sale value anyway), but I would make sure the work was done properly. Plus there are plenty of people like me who would actively prefer to buy one with that radius.

Barnezy said:

I'm in the same boat. All CS's seem to come with bloody 9.5" radius', apart from the Time Machine's and are so rare. I don't understand... Everyone bangs on about how lovely a vintage Strat is to play etc, and people pay £15k+ to get one, yet they change the radius for supposedly era specific CS Strats? 

This is my thought exactly. Fender drive me insane with their custom shop reissues. What on earth is the point of calling something a reissue if it comes with a 9.5-10" compound radius and jumbo frets! Surely the reason you would want a specific vintage reissue is becasue you want the guitar to feel like it's from that particular period. I think Fender are really missing the mark with this. 

crunchman

bobbatone said:

This is my thought exactly. Fender drive me insane with their custom shop reissues. What on earth is the point of calling something a reissue if it comes with a 9.5-10" compound radius and jumbo frets! Surely the reason you would want a specific vintage reissue is becasue you want the guitar to feel like it's from that particular period. I think Fender are really missing the mark with this. 

The Custom Shop will do 7.25".  You need to blame the dealers who order them with 9.5".

Jonathanthomas83

crunchman said:

bobbatone said:

This is my thought exactly. Fender drive me insane with their custom shop reissues. What on earth is the point of calling something a reissue if it comes with a 9.5-10" compound radius and jumbo frets! Surely the reason you would want a specific vintage reissue is becasue you want the guitar to feel like it's from that particular period. I think Fender are really missing the mark with this. 

The Custom Shop will do 7.25".  You need to blame the dealers who order them with 9.5".

I agree with this... However, dealers will, presumably, only order what their customers are buying.