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I was just curious ...is there a real advantage in using Ebony as a fingerboard material. I have finished two with ebony and have one almost finished with rosewood..and have had and still have a few guitars around the house with both rosewood and ebony. my next build is going to be a dred made of cocobolo and bearclaw, thanks RC tonewoods, and I was thinking of using a matching cocobolo rosewood fingerboard...my question has more to do with stability and durablilty ...

Thanks

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MK5acoustics.com

FWIW, if you google "ebony vs rosewood fingerboards" you'll see pages of discussions from various sources/forums (some of them pretty good). Lots of paramaters (feel , durability, brightness/tone, etc.)

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Dave
Milton, ON

Stability depends on the piece of wood, though I've seen more squirrelly ebony than rosewood. That's probably because it's still easy enough to get perfectly quartered rosewood in large quantities that they only sell the good stuff.

Ebony's harder, and so it'll wear longer, but that all depends on the player. Some people dig ruts into their fingerboards rather quickly due to the way they play and their nails, while others might never really wear down the board much.

Coco is prettier, that's for sure!

Here are some hardness numbers, which might give you a relative scale for wear speed:
http://tinytimbers.com/janka.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janka_hardness_test

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services