Davis guitars Posted March 20, 2007 Report Share Posted March 20, 2007 i was wonder what all woods could work as a fret board and if cherry would work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregP Posted March 20, 2007 Report Share Posted March 20, 2007 I've never done it myself, but consider: - maple is used for fretboards - cherry is very very similar to maple - many other woods that are softer than maple (and by extension, softer than cherry) are used for fretboards - other woods that are harder than maple (and by extension, harder than cherry) are used for fretboards So, I'd say go for it. I've worked both maple and cherry. The piece of cherry I had wasn't very "distinctive" in terms of colour or grain, and if I hadn't known better, I would have thought I was working a piece of maple. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davis guitars Posted March 21, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2007 kewl thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwitchfootOnPRS Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 Cherry? I've carved cherry sticks.... and the junky wood was WAY too soft.... Can guitars really be made of such darn soft wood? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrummerDude Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 There are two popular species of cherry, I think - "normal" cherry and "wild" cherry (it has poisonous leaves). I have worked with the "normal" kind of cherry and it is very, very soft - almost as soft as basswood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattia Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 Cherry? Soft? It's not much lighter or softer than maple, really. Perfectly fine hardwood. Harder than mahogany, f'r instance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregP Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 +1 -- the cherry I used was WAY harder than the mahogany piece used on the same project. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westhemann Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 cherry is very hard...like soft maple i used it on a neck once Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fryovanni Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 It is softer than hard maple. Very close to black walnut or maybe teak. Not a particularly soft wood, but not nearly as hard as say ebonies or rosewoods. Peace,Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrummerDude Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 (edited) Here is a wood hardness chart. http://www.silversmithing.com/1wood.htm On that chart the "wild" cherry has hardness of 950 and is close in hardness to Pine while Maple has a hardness index of 1450. I've worked with "domestic" cherry only and it was soft too - it worked like a dream and dented esily. We made a chair out of it. Looks great. On the other hand there are several "exotic" cherries on that chart and they all have hardness index of above 2000. One of them (Caribbean Cherry) has an index of 3100. This is more than twice harder than Maple. Those cherries seem to be completely different species, though. Edited April 4, 2007 by DrummerDude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fryovanni Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 Here is a wood hardness chart. http://www.silversmithing.com/1wood.htm On that chart the "wild" cherry has hardness of 950 and is close in hardness to Pine while Maple has a hardness index of 1450. I've worked with "domestic" cherry only and it was soft too - it worked like a dream and dented esily. We made a chair out of it. Looks great. On the other hand there are several "exotic" cherries on that chart and they all have hardness index of above 2000. One of them (Caribbean Cherry) has an index of 3100. This is more than twice harder than Maple. Those cherries seem to be completely different species, though. Western(eastern is pretty much the same hardness) White Pine is much softer than Black Cherry, not even close. To some commonly used woods for ref. Western White Pine-420 Bigleaf Maple-620 Gen. Mahog-800 Black Cherry-950 Black Walnut-1010 Hard Maple-1450 Pau ferro-1780 East Indian RW-3170 Ebony(african)-3692 Keep in mind though that the Janka side hardness test tests how many pounds of force is required to imbed a little metal shot half of its diameter in a piece of wood. When you reach a certain point the advantage of being much harder will be less notable(remember your fingers and strings will only put the wood under a certain amount of abuse). Ebony may require twice the force to embed the shot compaired to Pau Ferro, but that does not mean Pau Ferro is not more than hard enough to serve the purpose(and then some) for the life of your instrument. Peace,Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwitchfootOnPRS Posted April 6, 2007 Report Share Posted April 6, 2007 Ok maybe my cherry stick was rotting... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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