eddie74

I was looking through an issue of guitar player magazine today and saw an ad for a Parker acoustic with an "ivoroid" fingerboard. It looks as if someone else had the same idea, and much more means with which to accomplish the thing. They look pretty nice, and I imagine the fingerboards would hold up well. So now there are three good alternatives to chose from; ivoroid, MOP veneer, and artificial MOP venner (which costs 50% less than the real stuff). all of these could be topped off with lucite which can be shaped and buffed to a shine.

Thanks everyone for the help. After a little more research I found that what was being used on those old guitars was lucite. The mother of pearl might have been a thin laminate underneath the lucite. A lot of lap guitar fingerboards use that same method. It's definitely an over-the-top look, but it may be just the thing for the 60's inspired thing bouncing around in my head. I'm going to experiment with different gluing methods and see what works best.

Can anyone tell me a good reason why it would be a very bad idea to use mother of pearl as a fingerboard? I found an old italian guitar company by the name of Baleani that used mother of pearl over their fingerboards and it looked great. I'm thinking of designing a neck-through with a bit of 50's-60's styling and that mother of pearl would look great. What about laminating it to a traditional fingerboard? what could be some problems with this design? Any thoughts? Thanks - Eddie