Pre-cut frets with compound radius?

You have a little room to cheat the radius if you start with jumbo frets. Depends on the difference between the board and fret radii. Grinding jumbo frets from 10" to 16" takes a bit over a third of your crown height away at the center of the fretboard, which is a lot. Below is a scale drawing done in inkscape to show it visually. The blue curve is a 10" radius, the red curve is a 16" radius, the circles are both 0.053" tall (height of Jumbo fret wire), and the vertical lines are 2.18" apart (width of a Strat neck at the heel)

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You don't know that ....
Yeah, I do. I've seen what a 14"-radius fret looks like in the slot of a 10"-radius fingerboard. The ends of the fret stick up by half the fret height. Which means that, to file a 10"-radius fret into a 14" radius, you'd have to remove half of the crown in the middle of the fret. Even an insensitive player would feel that, and it would be visually obvious.
 
What's the difference between a 16" and a 14" radius ? And what would that do to your calculations ?
 
Yeah, I do. I've seen what a 14"-radius fret looks like in the slot of a 10"-radius fingerboard. The ends of the fret stick up by more than half the fret height. Which means that, to file a 10"-radius fret into a 14" radius, you'd have to remove more than half of the crown in the middle of the fret. Even an insensitive player would feel that, and it would be visually obvious.

No you don't .... Truthfully ..., I don't either .... I'm not a Luthier .... ! I can only go by the conversations I had with one of the preeminent Luthiers ( when it comes to fret work ) in the entire country .... So I guess you'll have to forgive me if I don't take your word over his ....
 
You have a little room to cheat the radius if you start with jumbo frets. Depends on the difference between the board and fret radii. Grinding jumbo frets from 10" to 16" takes a bit over a third of your crown height away at the center of the fretboard, which is a lot. Below is a scale drawing done in inkscape to show it visually. The blue curve is a 10" radius, the red curve is a 16" radius, the circles are both 0.053" tall (height of Jumbo fret wire), and the vertical lines are 2.18" apart (width of a Strat neck at the heel)

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Ah, that's exactly my point. The ends of the fret would still be jumbo. The center of the fret would be as short as the tiniest frets available.
 
Ah, that's exactly my point. The ends of the fret would still be jumbo. The center of the fret would be as short as the tiniest frets available.
Yeah it would leave you with about 0.030" of meat in the center, but that is also the biggest difference, which would only occur at the very end of the fretboard. Since it's compound, it would get progressively taller as you move down the neck (towards the nut). At the low and mid frets, it may not be that noticeable.
 
Yeah it would leave you with about 0.030" of meat in the center, but that is also the biggest difference, which would only occur at the very end of the fretboard. Since it's compound, it would get progressively taller as you move down the neck (towards the nut). At the low and mid frets, it may not be that noticeable.
Down at the nut, no practical difference, as you say. At the 12th fret, though, you've already filed the center of the fret down from jumbo to a medium thickness. It just gets wose farther up the neck.
 
@R.D. - could you take a picture of your neck at different points, maybe that can help determine what the luthier did?
I know you are happy with the guitar, so you probably don't care/need to figure it out....but it may help the OP determine if this would work for them or not.
 
WOW I didn't thought this thread would go this deap in debunking or not an idea lol. I would like to see pics of yout neck too.
 
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