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Thread: Alternative woods for fretboards?

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    Registered User Steve Sorensen's Avatar
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    Default Alternative woods for fretboards?

    What other woods work well for fretboards?

    Any dark colored native US woods?

    I'm also curious to know if anyone has experience using Bubinga?

    Thanks,
    Steve
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    Registered User sunburst's Avatar
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Nothing US native that is black like ebony or even dark like rosewood. Mesquite is good, and fairly dark. I want to get some and try it.

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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Kreutzer/Bulldog has used persimmon. I am curious about it. I have heard it has hardness close to ebony but it has to be dyed to darken it. I don't personally think a fingerboard has to necessarily be dark. If there is a species hard enough with the right properties why not just leave it natural?
    Don

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    Registered User sunburst's Avatar
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Quote Originally Posted by multidon View Post
    ...If there is a species hard enough with the right properties why not just leave it natural?
    Main reason; to sell instruments. The mandolin market demands a body with two points, one scroll, a sunburst finish, a black fingerboard and peghead overlay. Anything else is "different". Those have their place in the market too, but it's a smaller market, and each thing you change puts you farther from the main mandolin market.
    The only real practical reason for a dark colored fingerboard is the smudgy, grungy look that a light colored fingerboard tends to develop from the players fingers. That doesn't happen with dark 'boards.
    An ideal fingerboard wood is hard but not too brittle, stiff, stable, is close grained (small pores) and smooth. Ebony has most of those characteristics though it's not very stable, rosewood has large pores and is softer, so we're generally not dealing with ideal woods for fingerboards anyway. Sugar maple, black locust, osage orange, persimmon, and mesquite are good native US candidates if color is not a concern. There are probably others I haven't thought of or don't know of, but nothing as dark and traditional looking as ebony.

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    Registered User Steve Sorensen's Avatar
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Thanks John. Mesquite is very interesting.

    Regarding, "two points, one scroll, a sunburst finish, a black fingerboard and peghead overlay..."

    Although it might be controversial with some, I sure hope the jamband generation keeps adding mandolins to their music -- and that they will be interested in instruments that have evolved a little since 1923 . . . and that their youthful openness continues to trickle into the bluegrass community.

    Steve
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    I agree with Sunburst---I have used black locust, bubinga, bloodwood, rosewood and others and have enjoyed the outcome. the black locust has a wonderful yellow-orange cast to it and is dense with small pores that take a finish well--it looks nice when also used in the headstock overlay. But--if you are making this instrument for a potential buyer you cannot go wrong with ebony-the customer wants what the customer wants and will not, generally, be open to new designs or concepts.

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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Desert ironwood makes a stunning looking, hard fretboard.
    Steve



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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Some guitar builders have been experimenting with roasted/burnt/caramelized/vulcanized maple for necks and fretboards. This is a special process that heats the wood up in an oxygen free environment. It turns the wood a dark brown color. The resulting maple has greater stability, is not effected by humidity, but is more brittle.


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    Certified! Bernie Daniel's Avatar
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Quote Originally Posted by sunburst View Post
    Main reason; to sell instruments. The mandolin market demands a body with two points, one scroll, a sunburst finish, a black fingerboard and peghead overlay. Anything else is "different". Those have their place in the market too, but it's a smaller market, and each thing you change puts you farther from the main mandolin market.
    The only real practical reason for a dark colored fingerboard is the smudgy, grungy look that a light colored fingerboard tends to develop from the players fingers. That doesn't happen with dark 'boards.
    An ideal fingerboard wood is hard but not too brittle, stiff, stable, is close grained (small pores) and smooth. Ebony has most of those characteristics though it's not very stable, rosewood has large pores and is softer, so we're generally not dealing with ideal woods for fingerboards anyway. Sugar maple, black locust, osage orange, persimmon, and mesquite are good native US candidates if color is not a concern. There are probably others I haven't thought of or don't know of, but nothing as dark and traditional looking as ebony.
    Persimmon is very attractive (to me at least) from the standpoint that it is a native North American tree species that is a member of the ebony genus Diospyros. As far as I know here in Ohio we have only one species (Diospyros virginiana) and it is found mostly in the unglaciated southeastern part of the state but I have seen the tree growing at least as far north as Cleveland so it is, apparently, not particularly cold-intolerant.
    I have never seen one more than 20 or 25 feet tall and not with a very thick of a trunk either. Although one of the State foresters told me once that its growth rate is actually faster than something like a sugar maple for example and that it can get to 50 feet?

    The other interesting part is the persimmon fruit which many people like to eat especially after it has ripened and frozen -- making it sweet. As far as I know the wood is mostly used for pool cues.

    John, is persimmon wood easily obtained? I do not recall seeing in places like Rocklers for example.

    Some pics of persimmon aspects to ponder...
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    Last edited by Bernie Daniel; Dec-01-2011 at 9:24am.
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Quote Originally Posted by coreybox View Post
    Some guitar builders have been experimenting with roasted/burnt/caramelized/vulcanized maple for necks and fretboards. This is a special process that heats the wood up in an oxygen free environment. It turns the wood a dark brown color. The resulting maple has greater stability, is not effected by humidity, but is more brittle.

    [imgae deleted]
    That is some very attractive looking wood!
    Bernie
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    I have persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) trees in my yard at least 40 feet tall, maybe 50 feet. The diameter is only 7" or 8" though. I've seen a few in fence rows that were maybe 18" in diameter, about as big as foresters say it gets. The persimmon wood I've seen has been mostly light colored and not particularly attractive, but I understand that some heartwood is darker. I haven't completely given up on finding fingerboard material in a persimmon tree, but so far it hasn't happened.

  12. #12

    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    I've used local canyon black walnut, mountain mahogany, desert ironwood, catclaw acacia, and mesquite. Mesquite seems a tad brittle, I dont know how the chunk between the 28th and 29th fret would do with pressing or whacking the fret in. Using some old ziricote from mexico lately and wishing they all smelled like brazilian rosewood!

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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    http://www.mandolincafe.com/cgi-bin/...uery=retrieval

    John, you say you aren't able to get persimmon that is suitable for fingerboards. Does anyone know where Barry Kratzer got the fingerboard for this? I like the idea of persimmon, since it's a North American native wood that is apparently related to ebony. Barry dyed his to meet that "market demand" for dark wood that John speaks of. This mandolin has been listed at least 3 times and no takers yet. It's a shame, it looks like a nice instrument and a bargain at 400 dollars too. I would like the idea of a mandolin made ENTIRELY of suitable North American wood, nothing tropical. I don't think I have ever seen one though. My birch/walnut/maple Floodtone qualifies except for the rosewood fretboard. I have a picture in my mind of an instrument with a cedar top, flamed walnut back and sides, maple neck, and one of those dyed persimmon boards. A 100 percent American wood instrument. Nothing endangered. Nothing tropical. Could it be done?
    Don

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    Certified! Bernie Daniel's Avatar
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    What about Sassafrass as an fretboard wood? I have a number of sassafras trees (Sassafras albidum) growing in an old fence line that runs across the edge of my property. They do not amount to much because a powerline runs along it now and the tree butchers that the township sends out every few years have basically ruined them.

    The trees often lose branches in wind events and a couple of times I have taken those branches down to the shop and I find the wood light colored but also quite hard.

    The trees will grow to a considerable size in the right environment reaching over 100 feet apparently. Anyone work with that?
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    Bernie
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    I've been looking for a native fingerboard material but that means I need to either find someone willing to slot my fretboards using my wood or buy the setup to do it myself. My problem is that I use some non-traditional scale lengths so I can't buy stock slotting jigs. Here's Gibson's approach to the issue. http://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/ne...134531858.html

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    Certified! Bernie Daniel's Avatar
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Quote Originally Posted by multidon View Post
    ...I would like the idea of a mandolin made ENTIRELY of suitable North American wood, nothing tropical. I don't think I have ever seen one though. My birch/walnut/maple Floodtone qualifies except for the rosewood fretboard. I have a picture in my mind of an instrument with a cedar top, flamed walnut back and sides, maple neck, and one of those dyed persimmon boards. A 100 percent American wood instrument. Nothing endangered. Nothing tropical. Could it be done?
    That is exactly what I was thinking too...it would be really neat. And I'm no builder but would it be so hard to do? The backs, sides, top and neck and easily be made of North American woods so you "only" have to solve the fretboard and bridge issue?
    Bernie
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    Registered User Pete Summers's Avatar
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bernie Daniel View Post
    The other interesting part is the persimmon fruit which many people like to eat especially after it has ripened and frozen -- making it sweet. As far as I know the wood is mostly used for pool cues.

    ...
    They better wait until it's ripened. Ever eat a green persimmon?

  18. #18

    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    I recently made a fretboard out of walnut and loved it. Dark, but not like ebony. I've just sort of fallen in love with walnut; I'd like to make a whole mandolin out of walnut.

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    Registered User Chip Booth's Avatar
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    I had an instrument made with a cocobolo fretboard that looked and worked great.

  20. #20

    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    All woods from New Improved Mexico, even the resin in the varnish!
    http://www.mandolincafe.com/cgi-bin/...uery=retrieval

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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Persimmon at one time was used to make the wooden golf clubs and was rated as one of the hardest woods in America so I think it would do well as a fingerboard....Some instruments have dyed wood being used as fingerboards and after playing them for a few years the dye wears off and they look terrible...Bass fiddles come to mind....

    I refurbished a banjo mandolin and used maple as the fingerboard but it is just a wall hanger, I don`t ever play it....Anymore....

    Willie

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    Certified! Bernie Daniel's Avatar
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pete Summers View Post
    They better wait until it's ripened. Ever eat a green persimmon? grin:
    In addition to permanently puckering your mouth, hear you can save $$ that you might have spent on Ex-Lax? You know I wonder if anyone has added those soluble tannins to spice up red wine?
    Bernie
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Ah, for the days when Arnold Palmer would drive the ball 300 yards with his persimmon driver. I would think persimmon would make a great fretboard, some of the old golf clubs were dyed a darker color and they held up quite well under more punishment than a fretboard ever would.

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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    Never been an ardent tree hugger, but I love persimmon pudding. It is difficult enough to procure the pulp with the lack of trees left. Don't take them for fingerboards. Fender, with their Strats and Teles have done very well with their maple fingerboards, time for us traditional types to convert, for the sake of the pudding---For the love of Persimmons, think of the Pudding!

    Full disclosure: My mandolins, guitars, bass, etc... have ebony or rosewood fretboards.

    PS One other mighty fine thing Jim Richter can do besides play some mean blues on the mandolin and guitar (fine banjo picker too!) is make some fabulous Persimmon Pudding.
    Last edited by tkdboyd; Dec-01-2011 at 12:21pm. Reason: Kudos to Jim Richter

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    Registered User tree's Avatar
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    Default Re: Alternative woods for fretboards?

    I was hoping someone would bring up persimming pudding! As luck has it I am making one tonight to take to a friend we are visiting over the weekend. No lack of persimmon trees in the upstate of SC, though - you just have to dial in what they look like and you'll start seeing them everywhere.

    I don't know about age-altered wood (true "heartwood"), but D. virginiana produces very beautiful dark colored wood in response to injury. I've picked up decent pieces (12" diameter, firewood length) off utility rights-of-way that had lovely dark chocolate colored wood, and the transition zone between "normal" colored wood and discolored wood was stunning. The wood was not decayed at all that I could tell, and very hard. I sliced it thin and made a shaker oval box out of it that I really like.

    Persimmons are not too difficult to process for pulp if you have the right equipment: either an old conical colander with the wooden pestle or a Foley Food mill. Frost isn't a requirement either, though it is a common belief. All you need to look for is fruit that is very soft, typically after it has fallen (which is why I prefer to harvest from yard trees where the turf is well maintained). The pulp freezes very well; I'm still working through the last of my 2010 harvest.
    Clark Beavans

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