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I just bought and cut these today... makes nice fingerboard, and the price I got on the wood means really low price per fingerboard.

I got 3 blanks that is fully usable (all heartwood and no defect) and 3 that I need to be more careful (in particular one has a really narrow - 1 3/4" wide stretch of heartwood because the sapwood got really far in) to avoid the sapwood. Has anyone successfully incorporated sapwood into the fingerboard?

I also got some P100 filters for my respirator. Not as comfortable as not wearing anything but sneezing up black snot all day doesn't seem that good either, however it feels much better than wearing N95 all day. The P100 filters out some organic vapors too, which means I did not smell any wood aroma, and the moment I took it off after I got done sawing, I immediately smelled some really sweet odor from cutting the wood.

I really wish I got more money because these african blackwood could only increase in price. I really hope it doesn't end up like Ziricote.

Oh and by the way, one bonus of this blank is that the plank is actually quartersawn, at least some portion of it!

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Nice score Tai, worth taking out an overdraft for. LOL
I would say good ABW sets are twice the price of good Ziricote ones IIRC.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

You can also do a bound fretboard to bump up the width after cutting out the sapwood. Looks like nice stuff.

Yea, it's too awkward to do a bookmatch fretboard, although it would look nice... I would lose so much wood trying to get it to join correctly.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Best part in all of this is the plank of wood costs me about 45 dollars. The plank was in a block that the lumberyard wanted like 85 dollars for, and I didn't have that much money on me at the time, so he said he can resaw that board in half and give me the half, and charge me 45 dollars for it.

I got 6 fingerboards out of it (I really wished I could get 8, but I'm really afraid of going too thin so I got 6 slices slightly thicker than 1cm), which makes it about 7.50 a piece... a little cheaper than a second grade gaboon ebony fingerboard from LMI (actually a lot cheaper when I take into account the fact that it would cost about 70 dollars for LMI to ship me 6 ebony fingerboards). As I was resawing this the feed resistance was quite high. I am not sure if it's because the blade is dull, or if it's because african blackwood is just hard to cut. On my last set of african blackwood, I was having trouble with my bandsaw shaking so I switched to an old 1/2" 4TPI blade, big mistake. The blade was probably dull but the cut quality was much worse than Woodmaster CT. I discovered that at least on my bandsaw, the 1" blade needed less tension than I thought to run properly... when I tried to crank the tension too much, not only it was really hard to keep the blade properly tracking, but the bandsaw shook like crazy too.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

How did the African blackwood cut on the bandsaw? I have heard it is a pain to cut up. I have a chunk I need to make into fretboards. Just curious.

It cuts just like any other wood, you know like ebony and stuff.

However seriously it has a bit more feed resistance than any other wood to date, so it means it might be harder for the saw to push the blade through the cut compared to other wood. I had to push the wood really hard to get a good cut, not sure if it's because the force is applied in the wrong direction (I was pushing on the fence pretty hard too to prevent drifting) As for blade blunting, I can't say since I have not cut enough to say whether or not it's dulling blades quickly. I only realized this was African blackwood rather than gaboon ebony is because of the way the wood smells when it was being cut... smells sweet, unlike ebony which smells terrible. I will say the wood has a LOT of voids and stuff, so that could cause blades to blunt, not sure if the lumberyard is experiencing more blunting than normal... I will say carbide blade resists blunting better than anything else out there and it does NOT like carbon steel blades for sure (really rough cut, severe blunting, etc.)

My advise is if your saw can take carbide blade, install it now. It will save a lot of heartache. If not at least use bimetal blade. Use something with less than 3tpi and you will be fine. That said I did cut several bridge blanks using carbon steel 6tpi blades, but that blade was sharp. The carbide blade I use really made it shine on something so hard and dense like African Blackwood... cut was extremely smooth compared to carbon steel cuts.

I do have a question... I notice the wood is VERY oily... I dropped a bridge blank in water just to confirm density (it sinks like stone... DO NOT trust African blackwood too keep you afloat during a shipwreck) and notice water beading off of the wood, not as bad as cocobolo but pretty bad. So how do I glue this wood? Should I use epoxy or what method do you think is good if I want to use waterbased glue? I received a guitar for repair a few months back, and it had unglued back braces, and the back was african blackwood so I am assuming it's got its issue with glue holding too... It bleeds like crazy when rubbed with shellac... not an easy wood to french polish for sure!

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com