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I've got a 90's strat in for a set up and fret dress. The radius at the first fret is 12" and at the 22nd fret its 10", (that's measuring the actual board not the frets). This seems like a backwards and minimally strange compound radius. Is the flatter fretboard in the lower frets just the result of 20 years of playing/fret dressing or is this something someone would do on purpose?

Do the frets follow the compound?

Yes pretty much.

My thought is that the guitar likely had some work done just on the lower frets. When the work was done they inadvertently flattened them slightly not meaning to throw off the radius.

If it doesn't bother your client I wouldn't worry about it too much. If it were in my shop though I'd advise him to have the radius made consistent across the whole neck.

That seems likely, it has one of those Fender roller nuts on it as well, but it doesn't look like it was stock, so I bet there was something done in the lower frets.

An old trick usually only done on the frets themselves is to flatten the end of the FB...... The idea is to slightly flatten an area in a triangle from the end of the FB up to about the 10th or 12th fret. The idea is to flatten the radius up in the "Bendy" zone so bigger bends can be done at lower than typical action settings without reworking the entire board.

Sounds like someone tried this approach and got it wrong?

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

^^^^ What Brian said. I've done it myself back in the day. ^^^^

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

That makes sense Brian. It was the actual board I measured and not the frets, although the frets did follow the radius of the board as well. As I mentioned earlier it looks like the guitar had a roller nut added afterwards and I wonder if whoever installed it tried to make the lower frets match the radius of the new nut?

I come across strange things from time to time, they look so intentional but don't make much immediate sense to my limited experience, so I always like to ask people more knowledgeable than myself in case I'm missing something.