THE MATH CHALLENGE: Radiuses

[Foulacy]

I have an OFR and I need to match it's 10" radius to the 400mm radius of my fingerboard. 400mm is approximately 15.748", and 10" is apprx 254mm. I have 12, .007"(.178mm) floyd shims from allparts.

The challenge: How many shims do I put under each saddle?

Good luck!

[nhspike]

I think that putting those shims under your saddle will only irritate the horse.
Better to use a blanket under the saddle, IMO.

Did I win?

[Foulacy]

you won nothing.

[Ben...]

1,2,3,3,2,1? (Wild guess and a half.)

[Foulacy]

well it would be opposite that, 3,2,1,1,2,3 since we are attempting to make the bridge flatter

[Burn]

you could try removing the saddles (keeping them in order) and moving the middle two saddles to the outsides, and the outside two to the inside, and slightly shiming the middles(which are lower now). That should flatten it out with using 54372039432 shims.
Just a thought.

[Foulacy]

hmm thats a thought, thanks

[nhspike]

I won the first person to be unhelpful award.

So there.

[Foulacy]

I won the first person to be unhelpful award.

So there.

if only there were more like you the world would be a better place

[toejam]

I did that once, but it was on my Charvel Star which already had a flatter radius. I decided to drop the trem to the body and shim the saddles up so they wouldn't bottom out on the board. It was a trial-and-error thing, a real pain in the ass, had to remove and add saddles until I got it right! Ugggg!! Seems the saddles had little pieces of copper tape under a couple of them to get the radius right anyway. I guess it's something J/C did at the factory.
I'd try 2,1,0,0,1,2 and go from there.

[nhspike]

if only there were more like you the world would be a better place

You have stumbled upon truth my good man!

[nhspike]

Do you have a feeler gage?
A good way to verify (regardless of which method you end up using) would be to fret each string at the 12th fret, and see what size feeler gage you can get between the string and the last fret.

There.

So I wasn't totally unhelpful after all.

[ulijdavid]

I just placed both the 15.748" and 10" radii in a CAD program and used the.421" (10.7mm) string spacing for a Floyd and came up with the differences for the saddles. The high and low E saddles need a theoretical shim of .0195" (.495mm). So three .007" shims will get you within .0015". For the D and B saddles you would have a difference of .013" (.33mm). So two .007" shims would do. Make sure that you place the saddles in the original order.

3 2 0 0 2 3

You also might try cutting your shims for each saddle and getting some spray adhesive from a craft store to secure them to the individual saddle. It may help during the re-assembly and during intonation.

[gregthatshreds]

huh?

[Foulacy]

I just placed both the 15.748" and 10" radii in a CAD program and used the.421" (10.7mm) string spacing for a Floyd and came up with the differences for the saddles. The high and low E saddles need a theoretical shim of .0195" (.495mm). So three .007" shims will get you within .0015". For the D and B saddles you would have a difference of .013" (.33mm). So two .007" shims would do. Make sure that you place the saddles in the original order.

3 2 0 0 2 3

You also might try cutting your shims for each saddle and getting some spray adhesive from a craft store to secure them to the individual saddle. It may help during the re-assembly and during intonation.

great post. i missed this at the time somehow... the guitar has had one shim under the outer most saddles on each side ever since. i don't know HOW i missed this, but i will give it a go with these calculations soon.