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I've got a Macassar ebony FB and Bridge blank which I'd like to use on my sonic project. The marbling is a bit like a chocolate and vanilla swirl ice cream - with over 50% very light colored (sorry, no picture - camera's on the fritz)

I'm struggling with what I'll use for rosette - and peghead veneer and inlay. I'd really appreciate any pictures that you've got which show how you've handled light colored and/or marbled fretboards for steel string guitars. Thanks!!

I have one on the go .. sorry no pix available yet, but the body is macassar ebony (ME), and when the client and I were looking at FB choices, the macassar was the only one other than ebony that worked. The rosette is also a ME ring, with simple b/maple/b lines, and the binding is curly koa, darker than std, almost the same hue as the lighter colour of the ME. the headstock is also curly koa, front and rear. The bridge will be a chocolate BRW, or possibly swirly as well - havent picked that yet.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

I like to make the rosette the same wood as the sides/back or same as the binding (unless it's shell of some sort) I've done EIR for a rosette with Mac Ebony FB and Bridge as well as Curly Maple rosette with Mac Ebony FB and Bridge.





Although I think my Mac Ebony is much darker than what you're describing. It will get darker when you oil it.

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An endgrain black palm rosette would match the dark/light colors of the mac. very well and it looks pretty cool too. For the headstock I would probably match the FB if I could.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Tony, Todd, Burton -

Thanks! This definitely gives me some ideas to work with.

Regards,

Speaking of black palm, here is a rosette I did with it radially. Its wetted to show how dark it gets. It looks like Wenge. The other pick was an end grain version I did as an experiment. It didn't turn out to well. This is the only pic I have of it. The way I made these also didn't work well with the end grain pieces. They would swell and push tons of glue through the big ol pores. I could never get a nice flat ring like I can with any other wood I've tried. Using thin pieces of end grain black palm is tricky. Its really fragile. It chipped out a lot when I tried routing it into a ring.

When I am working with strange porous type materials (black palm, banksia pod) I rough cut them to close to thickness and then douse them in epoxy on wax paper. It fills in the weak spots pretty well. Once it is dried you can final thickness it down to flat and it works a lot easier. I did make a black palm rosette before I did that and found the same troubles with chipping, etc... The radial one looks really cool!

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.