Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm getting ready to make some radius blocks out of corian. I was planing on 3" wide, but not sure as to how long. I'd love to hear from some that have used these blocks for fret and fingerboard dressing and have an opinion on sizing.

As Always Thanks for your input.

Peter

My home made radius block is about 300 mm (12") long, Stewmac sells both 4" and 8" long wooden ones and a 18" aluminum one that looks sweet. I would not use anything shorter than 8" for radiusing finger boards.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I use the 8" wooden blocks from StewMac. It would be nice if they were a little longer, say 12". They would work a tad better at that length and I could get 4 strips of sandpaper out of one sheet, with no waste.

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Jim Womack

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. "
Will Rogers

I have the Stewmac 18" aluminum FB sanding block an 8" and a 6" wood block. I use the 18" aluminum almost exclusively now. I would not want to live with out it. But to answer the question if you were planing to offer these for retail then I would say offer them in 6" 12" and 18" There are specific uses for each. But if looking for the best lenght for new guitar leveling and dressing then 18" is the way to go.

It is difficult to use a 6" of 8" to leveling a FB. They are good at dressing a confined area. It is possible to level with the 12" but much easier with the 18"

I would get some 3M gold sticky back paper wide enough to fit the block. When using multiple sheets the seamed joint can accually cause damage to the fretboard there by causeing more sanding. don't ask me how I know this

There was a ingenious homemade adjustible radius block design I saw in a post once here - I have been meaning to look that up, as I have been meaning to make one myself, and if I find it I will post the link.
It involved sawing a number of channels in a block of wood, in order to make it flexible, and leaving the two outside channel ridges higher than the inner ones - the block was adjusted by a couple of fitting that mounted to the outter channel ridges??
Hmmm Im not describing this very well!
ANybody remember who made this?
Cheers
Charliewood

Found it
http://luthiersforum.3element.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID= 8477&KW=radius+block#forumTop

LMI offered a version of this for a while but I think they have discontinued it. Not sure why.

I just recently made several with different lengths.  Make some long ones so that you can use them as clamping cauls.

I use the LMI 8", but agree it would be improved at 12"

Mike

Peter,
If you plan to make any 6 string e.bass guitars consider making them at least 3.5" wide. I have a whole set of 10" long but only 2.75" wide and I would prefer them to be 3.75 every time I need to make a 6 string electric bass.
Michael