Alternative To Maple Fretboard

[zyonsdream]

If you want maple shades and tones and a good grain find a nice piece of bocote.

This board has an oil finish and it reminds me of the older telecaster maple boards that were hardcoated with an amber tint to it.

[orgmorg]

this article by frank ford shows how much finger wear you can get on a rosewood board

http://frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Techni...fboardivot.html

if you look at the first picture you will see divots between the strings rather than directly under. I have repaired some just as bad on wenge , all under basic chords

Its the thing that always makes me want fretboards from denser woods

Thanks for posting that. I have an old Alvarez acoustic with a fingerboard just like that. I was going to take a pic of it, but now I don't have to. Strings, fingers, whatever. If a rosewood board gets worn like that, a spruce board would get ground to mush. Mine belonged to a old redneck preacher man who must have wrung the fear of god out of the thing. The frets are worn almost all the way thru the crown in places. I found the tip of a rattlesnake tail inside, as well.

[orgmorg]

The top piece in this pic is persimmon, which is a relative of ebony. The bottom is hard maple, for comparison.

Haven't finished this one yet, so I can't say how well it works, but it is very dense and hard, so I believe it will make a very nice fingerboard.

[Dean]

this article by frank ford shows how much finger wear you can get on a rosewood board

http://frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Techni...fboardivot.html

if you look at the first picture you will see divots between the strings rather than directly under. I have repaired some just as bad on wenge , all under basic chords

Its the thing that always makes me want fretboards from denser woods

Thanks for posting that. I have an old Alvarez acoustic with a fingerboard just like that. I was going to take a pic of it, but now I don't have to. Strings, fingers, whatever. If a rosewood board gets worn like that, a spruce board would get ground to mush. Mine belonged to a old redneck preacher man who must have wrung the fear of god out of the thing. The frets are worn almost all the way thru the crown in places. I found the tip of a rattlesnake tail inside, as well.

Can I get a AMEN !!!!!

[ByronBlack]

Beech is very durable and comes in a nice range of colours so I wouldn't discount it. It's also very easy to get a hold of, well here in the UK it is, not sure about everywhere else.

I've got some nice scottish grown sycamore which is a very stable and relatively durable which i'll be using for a number of upcoming projects, it's easy to work to.

Boxwood is another option if you can find a blank big enough

[perhellion]

Thanks for all the wood type suggestions. Persimmon should be tough -- it's what golf woods were made of when they were actually wood. So does anybody have any experience with wood bleach -- any sort, not just guitar necks?

[avengers63]

Wes is right - you actually get very little string wear on fretboards... But they still do wear from the fingers

this article by frank ford shows how much finger wear you can get on a rosewood board

if you look at the first picture you will see divots between the strings rather than directly under. I have repaired some just as bad on wenge , all under basic chords

Its the thing that always makes me want fretboards from denser woods

This will happen eventually regardless of the density of the wood. I've had my Steinberger since 1989. As we all know, the carbon-resin-whatever they use on their necks is EXTREMELY dense & durable. Even still, I have spots on the neck similar to what was shown in that article. They're not nearly as pronounced or as deep, but they're there.

Actually, I didn't know what they were until I saw this article. (Thanks WezV ) After seeing it, though, they're easily identified.

[perhellion]

Just curious, how many sets of frets have you been through on the Steinberger?