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Hey all I want to know what you think! Here is the situation. Mahogany chambered body with a 5a quilted maple laminate. The neck back is African Mahogany. What wood will make the best fretboard for this beast? The goal is a warm darker tone. Here are the choices:

1. Bubinga
2. Kingwood
3. Palisandor Rosewood
4. Purpleheart
5. Figured Ziricote

Bonus question what does it mean when a wood is "figured"?

A level fretboard is best. A level ziricote fretboard is beautiful!

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Cody.... I used to get this question all the time....

My answer - what's the best peanut butter?

(answer: the kind you like)

Figured wood has interesting grain - it's not boring wood to look at.
Flame maple is figured, for instance.

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Ebony is always the best bet.

Wait!!! That is not on the list... must be an oversight

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

What is Figured wood? Now that is an easy one. Expensive !!!

The hard part part is figuring how many figures you will need to pay for it.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Are we talking about the solid kerfed fretboard?

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If you can find some stripey Madagascar rosewood cocobolo, I think those would look nice. Or if you really want to spend some money, get a curly pink ivory board. I think it would look better with binding in that case. Something dark like Madagascar rosewood, on both the fingerboard and body to separate the light woods from the medium toned mahogany.

No wood moves more in lenght than African ebony. Ebony as the best wood is a myth. There are few rosewood that are really stable.
If I'm not wrong, Gore suggest that the best fingerboard woods are madagascar rosewood and macassar ebony.

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

He's talking electric guitar here - while fingerboard choice will have some impact on tone, it won't be huge. I would select based on aesthetics from a number of choices. If the top wood is really wild and crazy, sometimes black ebony is simply the best choice. On instruments that I don't inlay much on to my personal favorites are madagascan rosewood, macassar ebony, cocobolo. Inlay? Ebony.

Awesome guys! Thanks so much for the help! From what I have heard I have decided to go with Macassar Ebony. I am gonna have a custom inlay done. It's gonna be pretty simple. My last name in the 9-2 frets in a solid Celtic font and Celtic crosses in the 12, 15, 17, 19, 21, and 23 frets. Do you guys know of anyone that does good inlay work?

i believe he suggests padauk too. MadRose i don´t remember but maybe. Macassar he does.

From the OP´s list,i´d go with palisander rosewood (suposing it´s d. baroni). but that´s just personal.

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Yea changing pickups or amp tubes will have more effect on the tone than fingerboard wood, I would say on electric guitars wood choice is mostly cosmetics but a bunch of people would disagree with me.

I prefer african ebony because I like the uniform black. Macassar ebony would look better though. For some reason I don't feel too much into this wood just because they're rather plentiful and cheap in Taiwan...

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Jacaranda and Wenge are two of my recent favorites.

FWIW, I use Pau Ferro on just about everything these days. It's easily my favorite fingerboard material.

Wenge is pretty porous stuff; do you use some kind of pore fill or just use it au naturale?

A FINISHED ONE ! Personally I Like Ebony .

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African Blackwood when I can get large enough pieces.

Enboy wins out when longevity is important. But cause of it's dampening characteristics I dont use it unless requested. Cocobolo is my favorite cause it's very close to BRW.

What about Micarta?

How do you work with cocobolo without causing allergic reactions or worse?

_________________
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

I wouldn't use purple heart.
I did once, and it ain't purple anymore.
Any kind of rosewood would be my choice.
I use ebony a lot, and like that,
can't go wrong with it!
Don't know what the other woods are on yer list.
It's not going to make any tonal difference, IMO what you choose.
A figured wood is flamed or quilted or some of the other obscure descriptions.
Maple and walnut and koa seem to have some of the best "figured" examples.

You don't, really. I've practically banned it from my shop and will only use it by special request if I like you. When I work with it, I wear gloves, long sleeves and my Trend Airshield Pro. I'm careful to capture all of the dust that comes off and then get it out of my shop as soon as possible instead of letting it collect in a trash bin or dust collector. Not everyone has reactions to it, but for most people it's just a matter of time so it's best to be cautious.

I did ask someone to show me cocobolo so I can see what was the big deal. I tried sniffing the wood itself and it really smells like pepper spray.

I guess that means Cocobolo would never make it to CITES because no one would work on it. I mean imagine the logger cutting it down...

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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

Tai, it's like epoxy. You develop a sensitivity to it over time with repeated exposure. At the moment, all I get is a mild itch on the back of my hands when I'm working with cocobolo. Over time, that will develop into mild irritation, and then on to rashes and more serious problems. Similar problems occur in your throat and lungs, also leading to inflammation and serious breathing problems.

The sniff test has nothing to do with it, really, though I'll agree with you that I don't really like the smell either. Most of us need exposure to get sensitized to it.

I know a number of folks like to use cocobolo for fretboards, but I also agree that using a wood that is a known strong sensitizer for a fretboard is a bad idea. What happens if your customer does develop a reaction to it? Oops, you've created a health issue for your customer, and now you have to replace the fretboard. Is it worth the risk? Err on the side of caution...

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