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I have a Few BRW Fingerboards that I might unload but I amnot sure what the current going rate is for these. I don't want to get ripped off or under price myself for I want to get some tool additions or some more Back/Side Sets.

Thanks,
Scott

Pricing for anything brazilian can be all over the map. I've seen them sell for as low as 25 dollars up to 100 dollars. This is one of things where customer x will laugh at you for any price you ask.........and customer y will pay anything you ask. Do you have any pictures?

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There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

Scott, do you have pics? I may need at least one.

Marc

The price I would pay depends entirely on how it looks. It is my belief that fingerboard material has little effect on tone, so there's no huge advantage to using Brazilian there. I can get a nice Madagascar or Amazon board from Allied for $15, so for the name of Brazilian, and the better smell, I'd pay $25-30 for plain looking. If it has extra nice grain, especially spiderwebbing, I might go up to $40. Probably no higher than that unless it was something really special, that I come up with a specific design for.

But that's just me, and I normally like to do lots of inlays so the board itself is not incredibly important to me. Therefore, my prices are probably on the lower end of the spectrum. But since I don't have any Brazilian fingerboards in the pile yet, I will be watching

Here are a few pictures of two boards that I am thinking about selling. Both are darker than what the pictures show. There was a lot of light on them.

I'd like to buy the one on the left. Send me a PM.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

How do you know?

Nice boards BTW.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Sorry. Edited to be less fact-sounding.

But to answer your question, hearsay and logic. Some people say no effect, some say little effect, but I haven't heard any put as much emphasis on it as bridge wood, for example. Electric players seem to put more stock in the maple/rosewood debate, but even there I haven't heard anyone mention what exact species of rosewood.

And logically, the neck as a whole undoubtedly does participate in the overall tone color, but the fingerboard is a relatively small portion of it, and has a bunch of slots cut half way through it. So while I do imagine it would still have an effect (after all, the string is vibrating just as hard at whatever fret it's held against as it is at the bridge), I wouldn't expect to hear any difference from one of those Madagascar or Amazon boards I was using as a comparison.

I paid $45 each for a group of boards that looked like the one to the left, and that was a few years ago. Top quality, quartersawn, brick orange with some ink lines.
I make a good profit on them when I use them.

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We are here in the realm of the anecdotal, as I thought. Luthiery, like sex, is not a spectator's sport. Although the Internet has changed all that, even for grown men.

All I can say is this: mass and internal damping influence tone, even on the neck. Then there is longitudinal stiffness. Brazilian is much lighter than all ebonies, has little internal damping and would be stiffer than most ebonies along the grain (and yes, that is mitigated by the fret slots).
On my necks the fretboard is a 1/3 of the thickness of the neck barrel. It influences the weight of the neck, its internal damping and its resonant frequency. In my book the way the neck is built influences tone on a steel string, and I verify it on every guitar because I use different materials and structures.
For example I am not fond of CF rods, although I occasionally use them, because they add a bit of high frequency "zinginess" to the tone. Just those 1/8" x 3/8" feather light rods. Is it the material's lack of internal damping, added rigidity? Perhaps both.
What I do sometimes is add ebony rods on each side of the truss-rod, about the size of CF rods. Just those ebony rods change the way the neck reacts, weighs and resonates. Subtle? Sure. But all the small details that add up in the end are subtle.
Far from the OP, I know. Back to the Brazilian boards now.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I like how the thread moved from being a question of the price of BRW fb's to a question of the superiority of the tone of BRW fb's.
I also like the perception of better tone and higher price being coupled.
To me, "all wood is good" in an altruistic sense, and I would rather rationalize the higher cost of BRW if it is at least perceived to improve tonality, and not simply a cost of beautification.
I just do not know for sure if beautiful wood increases beauty of tone.
I hear with my ears AND my eyes, just like the common man.

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Laurent, you say "I am not fond of CF rods, although I occasionally use them, because they add a bit of high frequency "zinginess" to the tone."

And then add that you sometimes add ebony rods on each side of the truss rod and that, "Just those ebony rods change the way the neck reacts, weighs and resonates."

Can you tell us what particular characteristics you're shooting for when you add the ebony rods?

Thanks,
Joe

We had a lot of offshore strats at a store I did repairs in a few years back, they were all the same PUs and body woods, some were maple FB, some EI rw .. you could easily tell the difference between the two, no matter which one of many of each type you picked up - all the maple strats were brighter sounding .... until that day, I wouldnt have believed it either.

Now braz vs indian vs madagascar .. I dont know how much delta is there, or between these and ebony or ziricote or mun or macassar, but I would guess maybe something subtle.

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

A bit more glue, mass and damping.

Of course Tony is right, maple neck Fenders are always snappier, and that translates into the pickups.
On steel strings the tonal difference with fretboards is of another nature IMHO, I suspect mass plays a bigger role than internal damping.
As for the difference between rosewoods for a fretboard, it is again weight. They all have little internal damping, compared to ebonies.
Madagascar RW is on average about the same density as braz, tucarensis (Panama or Honduran RW) is even lighter, but cocobolo, African blackwood and Honduran RW (Stevensonii) are much heavier, and often heavier than ebonies.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I just sold a dark, straight-grained QS board for $40. Before that, I had never sold one for more than $25. Judging from what I have seen on Ebay recently, $40 was probably too cheap.

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John

Just to make sure, what are the identifying features of true Brazilian Rosewood? I don't want to be getting ripped off either when purchasing BRW (and I'm sure none of us do)

Trust in the seller.

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The few that I got, I got from Colonial Tonewoods a few years ago.

to add to the stir: octopus sells them for 63 euros (25 years dry, they say), posting included (http://www.caucasianspruce.com/?page=pr ... 36&cat=312 ).

i have one (yes, just one...) ordered. can´t wait.

cheers,
Miguel.


edit: there is also this: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BRAZILIAN-ROSEWOO ... 35b168184e

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Octopus stuff doesn't look right for Brazilian, awfully light colored.
They should look like this:

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Well, it may be BRW, there is no detail in the pics, but I wouldn't buy it if it were as light as the pictures seem to show.
I think there is an expectation that BRW be a "dark colored wood".

On going back to that Euro site and looking at a lot of their offerings, all of their pics seem to be washed out and lighter than what I would expect in person.
Sorry for the bad opinion.

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