westhemann Posted February 3, 2007 Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 to say that it would take several HOURS to properly radius a board (not thickness the board) was overly exagerated; ebony or not.i said hours..i meant it.you have no idea what you are talking about,mr. i aiun't never dun it mattia told you the same thing...fine,whatever.i know you are all talk. here is an idea...get an ebony board and just do it.then you can talk all you want... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fryovanni Posted February 3, 2007 Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 I hate to agree with Wes and Mattia But they are pretty much on the money from my experience(2hrs. would not be a stretch, and many boards I use really gum up sandpaper*Blackwood, Rosewoods and such). However.... A smart fella could make a nifty router jig in a couple hours that could cut your time significantly. On the other hand if the fretboard I wanted was available I wouldn't hesitate to just buy a pre-radiused board. Peace,Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD Williams Posted February 3, 2007 Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 If you worried about a compound radius don't be, an easy trick to make the compound radius not so scary is to get a set of radius gages when you get the fretboard and measuere out what radiuses are where and bend the fretwire to accomodate them; also, if you are using a fret press, make sure you have all of the cauls neccessary for fretting said fingerboard. Radiusing your own fretboard and be a hairy task... so can slotting your fretboard.... so if it makes you nervous; you may wish to skip those on your first build and buy a preslotted fretboard. I don't know if it's completely possible so you would have to call them; but I do know that Warmoth does custom necks in just about any radius you can think of and so you may be able to order the radius you want from them for a preslotted fretboard, as to the quality of their woods, having worked there as recently as last summer, they've got excellent woods... You should definately check them out... you will probably find them to be very accomodating. ~KD Williams Everett, WA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chennik Posted February 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 Thanks for the insight, from reading everyone's post I'm definitely going to go with a radiused board... especially for a first build. I knew ebony could be pretty hard to work with, but from the sounds of it, it's enough of a pain that it makes sense to spend the money on the radiused board. I think I may look into the lmii.com route, especially if they offer that kind of flexibility, I'm sure its worth the extra cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melvyn Hiscock Posted February 3, 2007 Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 Whilst everyone else is arguing about how long things take (they take as long as they need to!) I would just suggest that for a first guitar a rosewood board might be easier. It should be easier to fret as the wood is a little more oily and it is less likely to chip, especially if you ahve to take a fret out and reseat it, which is quite possible on a new guitar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitar2005 Posted February 3, 2007 Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 i know you are all talk. Great. I'm not going to pursue this discussion any further. All I will say is this: I've worked with Ebony (when I changed the fretboard on my 1987 Jem) in the past and yes, it takes more effort to get right because of the hardness. We all agree on that. For some reason, it just doesn't take me hours to radius an ebony board to a 16" radius. What's so hard to believe in that? I'm not going to reply with personal "you are xyz" style attacks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westhemann Posted February 3, 2007 Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 sorry.i apologize.my post sounded way harsher than it should have.i worded it wrong. anyway...here is a hardness chart http://www.thevirtualshowroom.com/HWD/SldW...dness_chart.htm as you can see...the hardness of ebony far ouweighs just about anything.making sanding very tedious. For some reason, it just doesn't take me hours to radius an ebony board to a 16" radius. you have already said you never radiused ebony.so how do you know?but i radiused my last ebony board to 12"... if you do have to take any thickness away it will greatly increase time spent..but just a simple radius to 16" on ebony i would GUESS(only a guess...like i said i don't radius to 16")would take close to two hours...not counting frequent breaks for fatigue.... when i took 1/16" off my one ebony board...i dicked around with it for close to a week...about an hour a day...those are just "close" numbers. my point is...if you want a nightmare in pain and fatigue,and you need a good workout,hand radiusing ebony will get you there. my suggestion is to buy ebony preradiused or build a jig for your router... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted February 3, 2007 Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 Woods must really vary - because some of that chart I do not agree with. In my experience, African Mahogany ~> Zebrawood ~> Padauk ~> Hard Maple ~> Wenge ~> Yellowheart ~> Purpleheart ~> Bubinga. With Bocote and Bloodwood somewhere around Purpleheart. I have hand cut these woods to some degree. It's near pointless to hand cut anything passed Wenge, you're just asking for a work out from that point on. Of course, there are many different kinds of each of those woods, that's just from my experience with the woods available in my area. Good luck hand-radiusing any of those more dense woods, Ebony would definitely be a nightmare. Oh, and I honestly thought Ipe (Brazilian Walnut?) was the most dense wood out there, with Ebony close behind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westhemann Posted February 3, 2007 Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 ipe is just considered so because it is about the densest thing you can find in lengths that will support being used for decks and such. there is a wood supplier close to austin that has a ton of ipe... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitar2005 Posted February 3, 2007 Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 Woods must really vary - because some of that chart I do not agree with. In my experience, African Mahogany ~> Zebrawood ~> Padauk ~> Hard Maple ~> Wenge ~> Yellowheart ~> Purpleheart ~> Bubinga. With Bocote and Bloodwood somewhere around Purpleheart. I have hand cut these woods to some degree. It's near pointless to hand cut anything passed Wenge, you're just asking for a work out from that point on. Of course, there are many different kinds of each of those woods, that's just from my experience with the woods available in my area. Good luck hand-radiusing any of those more dense woods, Ebony would definitely be a nightmare. Oh, and I honestly thought Ipe (Brazilian Walnut?) was the most dense wood out there, with Ebony close behind. + 1 except for the nightmare part I always felt that wenge was harder than hard maple (at least the maple I've used). I think it in part depends on the actual piece of wood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD Williams Posted February 4, 2007 Report Share Posted February 4, 2007 (edited) Woods must really vary - because some of that chart I do not agree with. In my experience, African Mahogany ~> Zebrawood ~> Padauk ~> Hard Maple ~> Wenge ~> Yellowheart ~> Purpleheart ~> Bubinga. With Bocote and Bloodwood somewhere around Purpleheart. I have hand cut these woods to some degree. It's near pointless to hand cut anything passed Wenge, you're just asking for a work out from that point on. Of course, there are many different kinds of each of those woods, that's just from my experience with the woods available in my area. Good luck hand-radiusing any of those more dense woods, Ebony would definitely be a nightmare. Oh, and I honestly thought Ipe (Brazilian Walnut?) was the most dense wood out there, with Ebony close behind. + 1 except for the nightmare part I always felt that wenge was harder than hard maple (at least the maple I've used). I think it in part depends on the actual piece of wood. I've worked with quite a bit of wenge merely as the back of the neck's primary wood, I find it to be an EVIL wood that is extremely unfriendly to work with... I would never even dream of using it for a fretboard especially. Wenge is DEFINATELY harder than maple... I've handled HUNDREDS of maple necks and possibly 50 or so wenge ones -- I must say I always dreaded working on the wenge ones. As for Ebony other than chipping if you aren't careful when you pull frets and taking longer to sand a radius It's really not that bad to work with... Edited February 4, 2007 by KD Williams Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chennik Posted February 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2007 Whilst everyone else is arguing about how long things take (they take as long as they need to!) I would just suggest that for a first guitar a rosewood board might be easier. It should be easier to fret as the wood is a little more oily and it is less likely to chip, especially if you ahve to take a fret out and reseat it, which is quite possible on a new guitar. That's good to know, not something I really thought about too much since I was more concerned with the overall shaping and sanding, I didnt really think about the removing and reseating the frets. How does maple compare in that respect? I've refinished maple boards but I've never had to do any fretwork on one. I personally don't like the feel (or the look) of rosewood, and part of the reason why I decided I wanted to get into building was that couldn't find too many existing guitars that were what I was looking for (I generally am a superstrat kind of player) and had fingerboards other than rosewood. Right now, I'm working on building a "mockup" out of some pine and fir that I can easily get my hands on here, and i'm thinking of using leftover parts I have to make it into a full blown, if not exactly high quality, instrument. That way I make most of my first time screw ups on something that doesnt really matter too much anyhow. For that mockup, I was contemplating using maple instead of spending the money on an ebony board. But, again the whole point of the mockup is to learn as much as possible from the hands on experience. Any thoughts on rosewood or maple being a better learning experience to move up to ebony? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primal Posted February 5, 2007 Report Share Posted February 5, 2007 Wes, it times like these when I don't blame you for taking your hiatus... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.