Matching bridge top with radiused fretboard

[bgmando]

I recently noticed the following line in another thread about a Smart mandolin that was cured of intonation woes.

"Also the bridge top was not radiused to match the fingerboard."

I've never been totally comfortable with fretting of E strings on my radiused Silver Angel fretboard. I've attributed that to a different depth of neck than the Flatiron I was used to.
But I'm wondering if a radiusing of the bridge might help?

[mandroid]

when you get the D & A strings at the best height , and the G and E are still too tall, and, given that raising/lowering with the thumbwheels won't effect individual string's height, I would think a bit more off the top of the bridge, then re cutting the slots, would be a reasonable adlustment. personalizing for your feel preferences.

When I got my Lebeda set up a bit more bridge arch was made , particularly at the low end , Gs were brought down separately that way ..

[Doug Edwards]

I had a simular problem, I replaced a fishman bridge with a Cumberland, both were flat topped bridge saddles. The problem was my fretboard was radiused. The radius did not seem to be so much that I worried about it. A year or two later I changed the bridge to a raduis saddle and the playability improved and the tone seemed better. Perhaps due to the improved pick attack and intonation.

If your saddle is not radiused you can get just the saddle from Steve at CA and use your current bridge base. I think Ken gets all his bridges from Steve. You should be able to tell if it's radiused or not just by looking, flat is flat.

[mandroid]

My situation was builder used a radius, not flat bridge, but the set up job made it better than off the shelf.
a little woodworking ,on what was a top section with a pickup in it.
the slot for the embedding the piezo pickup was at the bottom so reshaping had plenty of wood above the PU strip, still.
precise intonation, also, a little sanding of offsets can be done..

[royboy]

whats a radiused fretboard?

[mandolooter]

A radiused fretboard has some curvature across the frets for easier more egonomic fretting. YMMV

[mandroid]

not flat, frets are curved, fingerboard too , violin fingerboards are very curved cant bow a flat neck.

a section of the circumference of a circle, typically described by the radius [1/2 the diameter, in case you forgot] of the theoretical circle

cake r squared , not 3.1417...

[mythicfish]

"cake r squared , not 3.1417... "

Pi are round.

Curt