Fretboards

[Duff Beer Man]

When you guys are done with you guitars do you leave or fretboards raw wood? Do you put filler and clear them? Im just curious. Im pretty fender clear coats theres, but what do gibson and ibanez do?

[guitman32]

Depends on the wood. Dark woods like ebony, rosewood, pau ferro and other do not need finish. Maple, on the other hand, does.

If you search around you should be able to find some resources on this topic. Try the wood refernce chart pinned in the Solid Body Tutorial and Reference Section.

[Duff Beer Man]

Well, on my esp it looks like there is some kind of filler or something on the fretboard cause its very smooth, maybe its just sanded really really well or someothing i dont know. If any has any idea let me know

[guitman32]

What kind of FB wood is on your ESP??

If its ebony, there shouldnt be anything on it. The fact that it is really smooth is due to the wood and the sanding done when prepping the FB. On the guitar I am making, I sanded the FB down to 1200, which made it highly reflective and extremely smooth.

Unless you are using maple, dont finish the FB or fill the grain. Just radius it with a rough grit, then when you almost completely done, start switching to higher grits. Say you are using a 150 grit to do most of the radius work. Once you are at (or just a little shy) of the radius you want, switch to 220, then to 320, 400, 800, 1200...That is the progression I used, and the results were quite nice. Once you get to 400 and above, you are basically polishing the wood, and not taking much off.

If you are using a maple board, do the same as above, only once the neck is done, you need to finish the FB along with the rest of the guitar.