Official Luthiers Forum!

This month's Acoutic Guitar magazine has a new Gibson L-00 with walnut fretboard and bridge. I've wondered if walnut would be suitable for that. Has anyone used walnut for fretboard and bridge? Is it a good choice?

_________________
Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

I have used it for a fretboard and it will work but it's a lot softer then what we normally use. It would probably be better to press the frets in, hammering them in I actually pounded the fret below the surface. IOW the surface dented in. Knowing that now of course I would take it easy but still. With black ink you can stain the walnut board to look like ebony if you want. I've not used it as a bridge but I have read taht it has been used and is actually well suited for such application.

I wouldn't use anything softer than rosewood for a fretboard.

Should be fine for bridges, though.

When I decided I was going to learn how to make bridges I bought a bunch of walnut and learned to carve them from that.

I've had the chance to use walnut on a few cheaper guitars (seagulls etc...) for bridges and it works well. It is much easier to work than ebony which saves alot of time. And on a cheaper guitar it makes sense to save the customer some money.

Under certain circumstances I might use walnut for a bridge, but never for a fingerboard.

Brent

Using Walnut for a fretboard wouldn't be first choice, but would depend on the actual piece, and whether or not the player cuts his nails regularly! I've got some really dense stuff, but I would press rather than hammer frets.
Walnut for a bridge should work fine, but be aware of the saddle slot being too close to the front of the bridge, keep a good thickness of wood there to compensate for the relatively lower strength of the wood, say 5-6mm minimum.

_________________
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.

Too soft for both, at least for my expectations from a tonewood given these tasks

I/ve taken apart old harmony walnut fretboards and they were all wallowed out, particularly in the upper register. I/ve seen commercial guitars with walnut bridges, and they sound fine . Trevor gore is an advocate of them. Have not used walnut bridges or FB on my guitars. I did make a composite walnut bridge as described in the gore book with epoxy . but have not used it yet. Walnut is my go to bridge for Ukes

I've used walnut for dulcimer fretboards, and with the relatively light pressure that is used when fretting them they seem to work O.K..
For guitars where fretting pressure is generally greater I think there are quite a number of cheap tropical hardwoods that would work better and look as good. Ipe (a.k.a. Brazilian walnut) is used for decking and is much harder than black walnut, and also cheaper. Cumaru might be another choice. If I was looking for a low cost alternative fretboard wood I would see what the flooring people had for sale

I've used walnut a lot for bridges. It's a good idea to keep the saddle slot back further from the front edge (I use 5mm), and angling the saddle back from vertical helps a lot as well. The lower density of walnut allows the for use of a larger bridge, which is helpful with thing like 12-strings, and also on cedar and redwood tops, which have lower peel strength than spruce. In those cases the larger footprint helps. You can also use a more 'normal' bridge size (keeping the saddle further back, as mentioned), in which case the lighter weight of the bridge helps enhance the trebles. Nice on a Classical.

If you're looking for a 'local' North American wood for fretboards, there are a number of them that are hard and dense enough, but not many that are also dark. I'be used a little bit of soft shell almond, which is not black, but a nice dark brow, and very hard and close grained. Once in a while you'll find some black persimmon, but not often. I have used black dyed persimmon, but the person doing that has stopped, since it was tricky to do and not profitable. I've used persimmon, rock maple, and American hornbeam, and stained them with a walnut hull tea, which makes them about walnut color. It's just a surface stain, but it does help hide dirt. Black locust turns quite dark when fumed with ammonia, and is hard, but not very close grained. Osage orange doesn't get as dark, but it's harder. 'Mountain mahogany' would work well if you could find a source; tell me when you do! Some folks like Texas ebony. There are probably others.