Fretboard Choice And Gluing

[brian d]

Hi group!

I'm trying to decide which wood to use for a fretboard for my current project. I'd appreciate your help.

Is there a difference in tonal qualities between a Madagascar Rosewood and Cocobolo? I was considering Pau Ferro as having the tonal qualities that I was looking for, but the boards I saw looked terrible with the top wood I have.

Do any of you have experience with gluing a Cocobolo fretboard? I've read that Cocobolo can be a problem to glue because it is so oily. Can I do it with regular Tite-bond? If not, what with?

The body wood is (according to the lumber yard) African Walnut, but it looks like the pictures I've seen of White Limba. It will have a 3/4" Goncalo Alves carved top. The neck will be 3 piece Goncalo Alves (quartersawn).

Thanks for any advice you can give.

Brian.

[Mattia]

Hi group!

I'm trying to decide which wood to use for a fretboard for my current project.  I'd appreciate your help.

Is there a difference in tonal qualities between a Madagascar Rosewood and Cocobolo?  I was considering Pau Ferro as having the tonal qualities that I was looking for, but the boards I saw looked terrible with the top wood I have.

Do any of you have experience with gluing a Cocobolo fretboard?  I've read that Cocobolo can be a problem to glue because it is so oily.  Can I do it with regular Tite-bond?  If not, what with?

The body wood is (according to the lumber yard) African Walnut, but it looks like the pictures I've seen of White Limba.  It will have a 3/4" Goncalo Alves carved top.  The neck will be 3 piece Goncalo Alves (quartersawn).

←

MadRose is a bit lighter and less dense than coco, FWIW, but I don't know if you'll hear any huge, major tonal differences. Cocobolo is, IIRC, the heaviest, densest member of the rosewood family, and is one of the woods (along with Pau Ferro, I might add) that quite a few people react to adversely when working (dust causing skin and/or respiratory reactions), so if you decide to use it, be very, very careful with it. It is a gorgeous, if sometimes very 'red' (darkening with time, generally) wood, where MadRose has more browns and gold tints, and not always very, very dark ones.

Honestly, I think you can't really attribute too much 'tone' to the fingerboard. Madrose, Pau Ferro, Cocobolo are all rosewood-like tonally, and will probably sound quite similar. Go with what you think looks nicest.

Re: gluing, I've seen some reports of problems gluing Cocobolo, but for every one of those, I've seen 10-20 people saying they've never had problems gluing it with titebond. As with any joint, freshly prepared surfaces are best to achieve a strong joint (best to 'worst': planed, scraped, sanded).