Braz rosewood fingerboards and bridges

adorshki

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Following this interesting thread about Brazilian Rosewood and pitch-black ebony fretboards & bridges, I was reminded of a story Mark Dronge told about Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh sneaking off to the drying room during a tour of the Guild factory in Hoboken, NJ. The link opens to page 55, scroll back up to page 52 and look for the 3rd paragraph that begins with "Mark Dronge, the son of Guild Guitars founder..." pretty funny stuff. :saturn:

That was pretty good. Given the spirit of experimentation at the time I wonder if they tried to sample any of the sawdust that may have been present in that "pungent" smelling room.
 

swiveltung

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What matters to me is the grain, not the source. In the pics above each example has a tight grain and a grain with those long strings of open wood. I hate that. My 69 Guild Bluesbird had an Ebony board that the grain was so tight on, that it was a bit like semi gloss black plastic. In 1978 I built out a sailboat and used Rosewood for some interior handrails and smaller pieces, the planks started as 5/4 or 6/4 thick. At this point I have no idea what type it was.
 

dreadnut

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Bob Taylor now owns most of the world's supply of ebony. He wrote a lengthy dissertation about it - basically he said they used to cut down ten trees to get one that was considered "black" enough for instruments. He said they're not going to do that any more, and that people should get used to having a variety of coloration in ebony. I would expect the price of solid black ebony to increase dramatically.
 

JimmyD

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I didn't know the fret board on my '66 F30 was Brazilian until we did the neck reset on it, and I had to clean up the underside of the end of the fret board. Yum....yum.
 
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