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Post by LTB on Apr 29, 2020 21:17:23 GMT -5
Am I the only one that prefers Rosewood over Ebony and why?
This is more than just Rosewood is prettier. I have never had a problem with Rosewood conditioning like I had the first time I tried to replinish the Ebony Fretboard on my Ibanez Archtop electric. Not only did it seem to drink up (yes, I stopped after 2 tries to replinish the dry looking wood) but reacted funny to the stuff I used for years. I think dry looking Ebony is UGLY. Plus I like the feel of Rosewood when playing better than Ebony. Don't see what people seem to like about it.
So how do you feel about it?
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Post by LesterPTelestrat on Apr 29, 2020 22:23:03 GMT -5
Maybe your Ibanez has a less then premium ebony. The ebony boards I have, seem to never need oiling and look and feel great. Smooth bends and very fast necks that look great. I do like rosewood though, I have several guitars with Rosewood boards. I prefer them to be as dark as possible. Something about that black fret board look.
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Post by guildx700 on Apr 29, 2020 22:33:27 GMT -5
Some "Ebony" fret-boards are not wood at all, even MANY Gibsons. Look up Richlite.
Rosewood...huge span of what is really great rosewood and the species used, the rosewood on my 1939 Gibson L50 archtop is my standard to compare to.
It's light years better than most of what we see on anything from the mid 1960's on.
Most manufacturers play off the words, flame/quilt maple might be veneer or even foto top, mahogany...hell it could be anything but what one would really want/expect...the list goes on. Buyer beware.
Don't mean top offend anyone, but really get serious and check into what these "guitars" are really made out of.
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Post by LTB on Apr 30, 2020 2:23:02 GMT -5
I can believe if it is indeed Ebony as they state it is a poor grade.
Richlite, now that may be a possibility too. I called Ibanez USA and they were going to check with Ibanez Japan to see what is being used. Now that I think about it they never contacted me back. Guess they either never heard back or didn't want to pass on what they found out
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Apr 30, 2020 9:52:39 GMT -5
Poor grades of ebony, within the guitar biz, usually just means it has color streaking in it. Outside the guitar biz, it might include some weird grain, knotty patterns or have pieces of sapwood. I'm yet to see those pieces ever make it to a guitar on the market, probably because it would be a nightmare in radiusing, cutting fret slots and then fretting, so much so that the things would probably quasi-self destruct before making it out the door; the natural incentive of the manufacturer would be to keep those pieces away to avoid waste. These days (largely thanks to Taylor) people don't care about colors in ebony, and if anything really like it. Before Taylor (and other companies, Warmoth also comes to mind) helped normalize color in ebony, pieces with color were either dyed, or the logs were left on the ground to rot at harvesting. I'm yet to find any evidence that they work or sound any different, although sometimes you can see (if you look close enough) some heavier than normal mineral content in what looks like an almost reflective silica through the wood, like a sparkle for lack of a better word. These pieces can be DEATHLY hard and could probably be turned into surgical tools if need be. Unless you're the one refretting one of these fingerboards, it will likely never affect you.
An important note about "dry" finger boards. Wetness vs. dryness is a quality of humidity, that is, H2O. People try to alleviate it with some sort of lemon oil, or something else intended for the guitar fingerboard. Here's the catch: those don't rehydrate the fingerboard, because the "hydr-" component isn't there. It is just oils, waxes, and possibly silicones. It is actually a wood finish. A light, absorbing wood finish, but a wood finish nonetheless. Ebony is a very VERY dense, tight wood, and it is not going to take many of these very well. When I was working for a certain manufacturer they always wanted to use mineral oil on the fingerboards, but it always looked awful because it just made a goo that sat on top of the ebony. This was especially frustrating as we were prepping stuff for final inspection/shipping because fingerprints on the board would always be visible. I smuggled in a bottle of my preferred Howard's Feed'n'Wax and dodged the problem for myself.
Another way to put it: Think when you had that woodworking project, refinishing a desk, making a jewelry box, whatever, and you looked at all of the options ranging from mineral oil, through tung oil, danish oil, shellac, up to the semi-hard finishes all the way up to the deathly hard brush on polys at the hardware store. The stuff you're putting on the fingerboard is simply stuff that is on one extreme end of this spectrum.
Rosewood, as mentioned above, is more of a vague category. Woods get confusing because you have these different groups of people (botanists, woodworkers, legal experts, marketing people, guitarists) all using different sets of classifications. Pre-1968 much of the rosewood out there was Brazilian. Brazilian rosewood is pretty darn dense, closed grain, and naturally oily. It got replaced by many other kinds of rosewood, including East Indian (which I'm not convinced is a single species, but that's another matter), which is less dense, has a much more open grain, and the oiliness varies widely. Pao Ferro is pretty dense (which is why some people consider it a decent substitute for Brazilian, like for the SRV, though I beg to differ), but aside from that, the rest of the list of alternative rosewoods are rather open grain and comparatively non-oily for a dark colored hardwood. They soak up pretty much any of the special finishes intended for guitar fingerboards like glorious little sponges. They darken, get a nice glossy look, and better approximate the look of the other woods that are denser and come closer to what we think a fingerboard should look like. In the general woodworking world, it would just be said that these woods "take finish very well". A good piece of Brazilian (straight grain, not too weird - "newer" pieces of brazilian are basically decades old cut off pieces and are really outliers) has a way of rejecting the oil finishes in the same way ebony does.
The most extreme version of this is probably walnut, which is seldom used, but you see all the time in Ovations. It is one of the softest woods used for fingerboards, and has a really bizarrely dry look to it when freshly sanded. It soaks up finish like crazy, darkens several shades and gets a nice dull gloss. To the end user, none of this should matter all that much. It can be tricky to get frets to stay down though, because there is so little strength in the fret slots. If they are even a tad too wide, you're clamping and gluing those suckers.
Ebony has a unique place tonally. It adds a quick attack and brightness to guitars that otherwise might be too dark or undefined. Think a good, high end classical guitar, a steel string used for finger-picking, an archtop or any bowed instrument. They just wouldn't be the same without it. On a solid body guitar, they can sometimes just make the guitar sound too strident to my ears. A lot of shred guitars are like this to me. Very chunky and harsh, especially when mixed with hot pickups.
A final thought: if you're seeing a difference in appearance between the ebony on cheaper guitars and nicer guitars, there is a very VERY good chance what you're seeing is differences in final sanding. Because ebony is so dense, it shows a lot of short cuts and such in the sanding. Most woods out there won't show any improvement when sanded beyond 220, but I've had pieces of ebony where you can see scratches from 400 or 600, and I've even had pieces that are so dense they can be buffed! Import guitars often have the fingerboards sanded on giant sanding machines that use belts around 108" long (I'm going from memory, I could be wrong on that) and it might only go as high as 180 or 220. Add to it any additional challenges of making inlays and binding look good, a hasty fretting process, and it is a bit like eating spaghetti with a white shirt. If someone is bored on quarantine, I bet they could make their "cheap" ebony look "expensive" with just a bit of elbow grease.
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Post by Leftee on Apr 30, 2020 10:01:07 GMT -5
I like it all.
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Post by LTB on Apr 30, 2020 12:42:33 GMT -5
My particular Fretboard in question is just solid dark black. Absolutely no grain showing at all. "If someone is bored on quarantine, I bet they could make their "cheap" ebony look "expensive" with just a bit of elbow grease." Where do I get some Elbow Grease? Ok, bad joke  |
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Apr 30, 2020 13:25:50 GMT -5
Your fretboard might be dyed or have a fine wax on it. It would make sense on a cheaper archtop, since those often get ebony in order to get the "tuxedo" look. That would hide color markings as well as make it reject certain oils you put on top of it since there isn't any grain for it to soak into. The dyes can be pretty ugly sometimes... I'm not a fan.
The practice of dying non-ebony woods black to make them look like ebony has been rare in the past 20 years among name brand instruments so my guess is that it would be ebony under there, just of a different color... but that's just a guess. Also, I haven't seen the phenolic boards on very many guitars besides Martins. How old is the guitar?
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Post by LTB on Apr 30, 2020 20:51:33 GMT -5
It is a 2019 model Ibanez Artcore Expressionist AF95 I bought in February of this year. The one in my Avatar.
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Post by guildx700 on Apr 30, 2020 21:29:12 GMT -5
Keep in mind China produced products have ZERO real enforceable laws in the rest of the world that makes them bound to the stated materials of said products.
I'll cite one serious example to make this point come home in a real way.
Remember folks........China made dog food that killed our dogs. Killed MANY,
I've been to China, frankly I have nothing good to report.
Had to go there as a "food product" our factory started using to save money was sourced from China & turns out it
had A LOT OF METAL in it. We were getting endless kick offs with our metal detectors.
What kind of metal you may ask?
How does nuts, bolts & washers sound to you? Tasty???
Turns out the factory was literally falling apart into their processing machines vats from overhead.
Nice, eh? If they treat food that way, well, guitars?
So, guitar "tone woods" from China?
If you want to call what they are using "wood", the bulk of their products use the worst/cheapest possible
raw materials masquerading as what they claim it to be.
Sorry for the brutal honesty, but I've seen too much to remain silent on this.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Apr 30, 2020 22:26:44 GMT -5
... except Ibanez isn't a Chinese company, and most/all manufacturers that contract to Chinese factories do at least a bit of quality control and inspection, even if it gets sloppy. If they're flat out using obviously wrong woods, it won't last long. iPhones are made in China too, and no one is pulling weird switches on us just by their devious Chinese nature. If they treat food that way, well, guitars? Also, realize that the "they" you're talking about implies that the exact same factory workers making the dog food are the same ones in the factories making guitars. This is a country with over a billion people. It is like sitting on a front porch in Louisiana and expecting everyone to be Seattle grunge or an Eskimo or a Mexican immigrant or a New York stockbroker... you get the idea. |
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Post by guildx700 on Apr 30, 2020 23:06:47 GMT -5
... except Ibanez isn't a Chinese company, and most/all manufacturers that contract to Chinese factories do at least a bit of quality control and inspection, even if it gets sloppy. If they're flat out using obviously wrong woods, it won't last long. iPhones are made in China too, and no one is pulling weird switches on us just by their devious Chinese nature. If they treat food that way, well, guitars? Also, realize that the "they" you're talking about implies that the exact same factory workers making the dog food are the same ones in the factories making guitars. This is a country with over a billion people. It is like sitting on a front porch in Louisiana and expecting everyone to be Seattle grunge or an Eskimo or a Mexican immigrant or a New York stockbroker... you get the idea. Funny you should mention iPhones. "Apple recently announced that its iPhone X — sold all through 2018 — can exhibit a major factory defect on its screen that will make it unresponsive to touch"...hhmmmm.....nice work. Ibanez budget guitars are from China, the Ibanez name means zero to that product line's integrity. It only holds value to those buyers who misplaced brand name loyalty does nothing to improve the quality. The near endless amount of junk that comes out of China speaks for itself. Take a China guitar apart, inspect each piece, I have, more than a few times. What is represented in the facsimile image of an item they make is a far cry from the reality of it. It's that illusion of " hey this is just like a"...(insert well known product name) that fuels their economy. |
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on May 1, 2020 9:41:41 GMT -5
... except Ibanez isn't a Chinese company, and most/all manufacturers that contract to Chinese factories do at least a bit of quality control and inspection, even if it gets sloppy. If they're flat out using obviously wrong woods, it won't last long. iPhones are made in China too, and no one is pulling weird switches on us just by their devious Chinese nature. Also, realize that the "they" you're talking about implies that the exact same factory workers making the dog food are the same ones in the factories making guitars. This is a country with over a billion people. It is like sitting on a front porch in Louisiana and expecting everyone to be Seattle grunge or an Eskimo or a Mexican immigrant or a New York stockbroker... you get the idea. Funny you should mention iPhones. "Apple recently announced that its iPhone X — sold all through 2018 — can exhibit a major factory defect on its screen that will make it unresponsive to touch"...hhmmmm.....nice work. Ibanez budget guitars are from China, the Ibanez name means zero to that product line's integrity. It only holds value to those buyers who misplaced brand name loyalty does nothing to improve the quality. The near endless amount of junk that comes out of China speaks for itself. Take a China guitar apart, inspect each piece, I have, more than a few times. What is represented in the facsimile image of an item they make is a far cry from the reality of it. It's that illusion of " hey this is just like a"...(insert well known product name) that fuels their economy. Alright, this is officially a stupid argument. I had a long post explaining why this is all ridiculous and deleted it. I'm not arguing the point any more.
LTB - your guitar is fine, no bait and switch, no weirdness. I checked out the pictures, and that fingerboard is suspiciously dark. Ebony only gets that dark if you flip through wood stacks long enough (again, not necessarily higher quality, just selecting darker pieces) which isn't going to happen on an instrument of that price, or if it is dyed. My best guess is there is some thick dye on there, maybe a paint, that is accounting for both the weird reaction with your conditioners and the strange feeling you're getting. There are a few ways to take care of that. I'd start by wiping it down with a light solvent (naphtha would be my choice - don't use anything that melts plastics like acetone) which will remove old oils and waxes. I'd then use a series of sand paper pieces going from no coarser than 220 (I'd probably start higher) and go up to 1000 or higher. Go with the grain up and down the fingerboard with the paper wrapped around your finger or some other material, like a piece of leather or cardboard. This is how scratches are removed after a fret dress, and it smooths the fingerboard at the same time. Whatever gooeyness is on the fingerboard will probably cake up the sand paper and leave the FB smooth. Finish with 0000 steel wool and reapply the conditioner of your choice. If you want to get a bit more thorough, you can wrap some of the middle grits (600 would be a good one) around a small block or other stiff material to get all the space between the frets. You'll end up with a less black fingerboard, but it'll feel better and have less of a gooey feel. If the sandpaper sounds like more than you want to tackle, you can do the solvent, then some fine scotch-brite and then steel wool. Remember to tape off that pickup because you're going to want to be pretty aggressive with the steel wool and it will shed a lot.
Also, it just occurred to me that the excess of "drinking" on your ebony might be the oil going into fret slots or gaps in the inlays, which isn't a great thing. If you think that's happening, I'd ease up on it big time. I prefer thicker fingerboard conditioners for that reason. I've had inlays lift and fret issues from over use. Actually, the fast fret spray is the worst of all of them, but I've seen it from lemon oil as well. The dryness you were seeing might be an optic illusion from the dye or paint or whatever looking kinda crusty.
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Post by Lefty Rev on May 1, 2020 10:43:06 GMT -5
funkykikuchiyo - have you ever used 3-in-1 Oil on a guitar fretboard or bridge? I understand that Martin sometimes uses it at the factory (when needed), and I've used it on Rosewood bridges and fretboards - mostly to darken them up, since Rosewood (*good* Rosewood) tends to be naturally oily and shouldn't need these kinds of oils/lubricants/moisturizers to treat them...
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on May 1, 2020 11:00:21 GMT -5
funkykikuchiyo - have you ever used 3-in-1 Oil on a guitar fretboard or bridge? I understand that Martin sometimes uses it at the factory (when needed), and I've used it on Rosewood bridges and fretboards - mostly to darken them up, since Rosewood (*good* Rosewood) tends to be naturally oily and shouldn't need these kinds of oils/lubricants/moisturizers to treat them... I haven't and I wouldn't.
When it soaks into endgrain it does some weird stuff, and there is a lot of end grain on a fingerboard. I've seen that happen when people go to down on tuner keys. Maple will turn a permanent grey from the grease that soaks in. In moderation and only applied to a cloth before wiping it is probably safe, but there are just a lot of better options out there. I wasn't aware of Martin using it.
You're right that the woods don't need "moisturizing", and as I mentioned above, these solutions aren't moisturizers anyway, they're light finishes.
My favorite is Howard's Feed'N'Wax. It is cheap.. a bottle will last a life time for a non-professional. It is thick and doesn't run off into weird places. It lasts a long time so you don't have to keep reapplying to keep a dark look. It darkens the fingerboard quite a bit, which is usually what people want. It wipes off nice and clean, and doesn't get sticky or gummy. If you have a particularly open grain piece of wood, you can safely let it sit thick on there and soak in or do it in a couple rounds to great results. The smell isn't bad, and it doesn't linger or have a petro-chemical odor. They also make a butcher block oil which is very similar, and could be a good call for people concerned about skin sensitivities.
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on May 1, 2020 11:41:45 GMT -5
Also, keep in mind that 3-in-1 Oil is available in several formulations. Some contain petroleum distillates, and some don't. Using 3-in-1 is like rolling the dice unless you know exactly what you've got. I've never used it on wood.
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Post by Leftee on May 1, 2020 12:09:35 GMT -5
Just popping in to insert a civility reminder.  |
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on May 1, 2020 12:18:24 GMT -5
Sorry. I'll remember to never again use the term 'petroleum distillates' in a reply.
"I've done it again. I've done it again!"
-Sir Robin
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Post by LTB on May 1, 2020 13:33:32 GMT -5
funkykikuchiyo, your posts have been very informative. Thank you for taking the time to do this. Concerning the fretboard darkness I do suspect a dye was used as when I look at the bottom of the Ebony movable bridge you can see the lighter wood with some grain and what looks like dark dye at the edges.
I am going to try that “fretboard wax” product you mentioned if I can locate some.
Again thanks 😊
Update: Found Howard’s Feed and Wax wood conditioner and polish at Home Depot
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Post by reverendrob on May 1, 2020 15:48:52 GMT -5
Good either, I don't have a preference.
Cheap stuff, give me the cheaper rosewood over cheapie ebony.
But I'm AOK with the Granadillo fretboards on my Les Paul High Performance thingies.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on May 1, 2020 16:08:30 GMT -5
funkykikuchiyo, your posts have been very informative. Thank you for taking the time to do this. Concerning the fretboard darkness I do suspect a dye was used as when I look at the bottom of the Ebony movable bridge you can see the lighter wood with some grain and what looks like dark dye at the edges. I am going to try that “fretboard wax” product you mentioned if I can locate some. Again thanks 😊 Update: Found Howard’s Feed and Wax wood conditioner and polish at Home Depot Excellent! You'll love the stuff, I promise!
The bridge may very well be rosewood painted black to match. That is still semi-common... so, if you see rosewood under there, it doesn't mean the fingerboard is also rosewood. FYI.
Keep us updated!
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Post by LTB on May 1, 2020 16:38:06 GMT -5
funkykikuchiyo, your posts have been very informative. Thank you for taking the time to do this. Concerning the fretboard darkness I do suspect a dye was used as when I look at the bottom of the Ebony movable bridge you can see the lighter wood with some grain and what looks like dark dye at the edges. I am going to try that “fretboard wax” product you mentioned if I can locate some. Again thanks 😊 Update: Found Howard’s Feed and Wax wood conditioner and polish at Home Depot Excellent! You'll love the stuff, I promise!
The bridge may very well be rosewood painted black to match. That is still semi-common... so, if you see rosewood under there, it doesn't mean the fingerboard is also rosewood. FYI.
Keep us updated!
I couldn't tell what kind of wood it is as there was no finish on the center area of the bottom that sits on the body. I picked the Howard's Feed and Wax Wood Conditioner and Polish and plan on changing strings tonight or sometime this weekend and will indeed let you know. Thanks again |
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Post by LTB on May 2, 2020 23:57:19 GMT -5
funkykikuchiyo "LTB - your guitar is fine, no bait and switch, no weirdness. I checked out the pictures, and that fingerboard is suspiciously dark. Ebony only gets that dark if you flip through wood stacks long enough (again, not necessarily higher quality, just selecting darker pieces) which isn't going to happen on an instrument of that price, or if it is dyed. " That explains my 2014 LTD 5 string Bass with Ebony Fretboard that is light enough to see some grain in it. Never had a problem with it. Just noticed it was a little lighter than most Ebony but for me that is a good deal. I don't care for total black fretboards. |
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Post by rickyguitar on May 3, 2020 0:29:55 GMT -5
My 60's and 70' Gibsons had ebony. I really liked it. G&l has maple. I really like it. I know, I am easy.
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Post by LTB on May 3, 2020 2:32:44 GMT -5
My 60's and 70' Gibsons had ebony. I really liked it. G&l has maple. I really like it. I know, I am easy. Curious, how were your 70's Gibsons? Any issues with uneven fret heights or other stuff? A friend had 3 Gibson Les Pauls. One Deluxe (I loved that one), one Black Beauty, and one Anniversary issue. Of those the Deluxe had the least issues. The other two had to have frets and nuts needing work. |
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Post by rickyguitar on May 3, 2020 2:59:39 GMT -5
60's 330 was really a peach. Great sound, great action. It was stolen with a couple others. With the insurance money I bought s 78 or 79 LP custom that I was very happy with. Gigged with it 5 or 6 or 7 nights a week.
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Post by LTB on May 3, 2020 4:15:49 GMT -5
60's 330 was really a peach. Great sound, great action. It was stolen with a couple others. With the insurance money I bought s 78 or 79 LP custom that I was very happy with. Gigged with it 5 or 6 or 7 nights a week. The Gibson ES-330 looks like Gibson's version of the Epiphone Casino. Nice! |
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Post by guildx700 on May 3, 2020 12:08:23 GMT -5
LTB said: Curious, how were your 70's Gibsons? Any issues with uneven fret heights or other stuff?
My 1976 Explorer has amazing frets, that is if you like the near fretless wonder style, which I do. I bought it new in 1978. Watched it sit at the store for nearly 2 years. Also....the nut is one of the best cut stock Gibson ones I've seen. This is compared to a very thin, quite small round toothpick: 
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Post by LTB on May 3, 2020 12:33:05 GMT -5
guildx700
Very nice looking frets. Love the way the fret ends ate smoothly dressed! Hate frets digging into my palm
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Post by ninworks on May 3, 2020 13:28:41 GMT -5
I am primarily an ebony guy but don't have a problem with rosewood. In fact, the guitar I seem to play the most these days has a rosewood fingerboard. My 2013 60's Tribute Gold Top Les Paul. I love the ebony fingerboards on my 62 SG Custom, 84 Fender Flame Ultra, and 2007 Custom Shop Gibson CS356. I used to play the SG all the time but after my experimentation with .010 strings, that I couldn't get used to after playing 009's forever, I haven't taken the time to re-string it and make the necessary adjustments. The Les Paul was out on the stand and I really like the way it plays. So, that's what I've been playing the most for the last year or so.
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