Ebonize fretted fingerboard?

[Darryl Hattenhauer]

Colleagues,

Does anybody ever ebonize a finger board (stain rosewood black to look like ebony) that already has the frets in it?

dh

 

[Cougar]

I tried it on a cheap-o guitar. Stain didn't work so well. You've got to rough up the rosewood so it'll accept the stain, but.... you might not want to do that! I heard shoe polish might work but didn't try that (unintended consequences?). Probably ought to get a luthier's opinion....

 

[SFIV1967]

Think about all the oil from the fingers and the oil that maybe previous owners put on the fingerboard, how so you expect stain to go into the wood with all that oil? Also rosewood itself is pretty oily, so I guess it will be messy trying to stain a used fretboard and the result will look bad.

Ralf

 

[AcornHouse]

It was done on inexpensive instruments in the early 20th century; I have an old mandolin with an ebonite board. However, the wood is some cheaper wood, not rosewood.
Rosewood, being a fairly oily wood, would not take any stain or dye well.

 

[bobouz]

Yes, it can be done on an existing fretboard with India Ink.

In fact, StewMac sells the stuff specifically for that purpose. You do need to carefully mask off the nut & binding. See their site for more detailed prep info.

 

[SFIV1967]

StewMac sells the stuff specifically for that purpose.

Not sure I would want to put that on a rosewood fretboard of a finished guitar...Also it looks odd having the top colored black and the sides not. And it sounds easy but my gut feeling is you might be disappointed afterwards... Plus it might stain the inlays as well. Anyway, I would first buy an old beater guitar with a well used rosewood fretboard to try it to see how the oily wood accepts it. And if a previous owner used some polish with silicone in it, have fun.
Ralf

 

[wileypickett]

I think Ralf's point is good.

The sides of the fretboards on most (all?) of my Guilds are lacquered, but there are occasionally chips or areas where the lacquer is worn off. Check your guitar -- applying liquid stain might make for an inconsistent or mottled look.

Maybe taping off the sides and applying gel-stain would be a safer alternate? (Assuming you're dead-set on doing this!)

 

[chazmo]

I've run across blackened bridges occasionally over the years. Not sure if I've ever had a guitar in my hands with this done to the fretboard. I really don't like getting black specks on my cleaning cloths or whatever. Definitely not my thing.

 

[bobouz]

I’d thought about doing it to one of my instruments years ago & found the StewMac info, which is why I mentioned it. But like others here, I had concerns, especially with possible bleeding onto binding & block inlays, so chose not to pursue it. If it had been a dot inlaid board without binding, I might have taken the plunge!

 

[AcornHouse]

And to clarify, the dye that StewMac sells is usually used on ebony fingerboards to get them perfectly black. Most ebonies have lighter streaks running through. Only the highest quality Gabon ebony is perfectly black. And that’s getting harder to find.

And to really nitpick on the terminology: a stain sits on top of the wood, with minimal penetration, usually in some type of oil based binder; a dye penetrates the wood, with a water or alcohol binder.

 

[Brad Little]

Some manufacturers already stain ebony boards. Not all ebony has the solid black that guitarists want, but is streaked with brown.

 

[spoox]

Maple used to be dyed to look like ebony on less expensive instruments in the early 20th. century. The aniline dye often would affect the fingerboards
and make the wood brittle and subject to crumbling years later if any work were to be done to them. I would guess should rosewood be gone over
with acetone to strip the surface of oil residue (be careful of MOTS inlays) and a black water base aniline dye applied, the color would probably be close,
but the thing would still have rosewood pores--that's one of the reasons maple was used to simulate ebony--in European antiques I would often find
ebonized beechwood.
Going the other direction, in the mid seventies I bought a Brazilian rosewood stool from the 1850s. The sides were veneered, but the legs seemed to be
solid rosewood. Nope! They were oak, dyed to look like rosewood. That started me on a binge of turning all sort of oak objects into rosewood
with the help of various aniline dyes. The key was using wood that had the right pore pattern to simulate the desired wood. For ebony, you would need to fill the pores of the rosewood if you wanted convincing results.

 

[walrus]

Geez, I was going to suggest a black Sharpie, but you all have must better responses!

walrus

 

[wileypickett]

And to really nitpick on the terminology: a stain sits on top of the wood, with minimal penetration, usually in some type of oil based binder; a dye penetrates the wood, with a water or alcohol binder.

Thanks for the making that distinction clear AH.

 

[davismanLV]

Does anyone yet know if Darryl is trying to get one or to avoid one?? It could be either.....

 

[Cougar]

It was done on inexpensive instruments in the early 20th century....

On this 2010 Dot, Epiphone must have stained this fretboard dark during production, because I bought it new, and it came with that super dark fretboard I've always enjoyed....

 

[Darryl Hattenhauer]

Does anyone yet know if Darryl is trying to get one or to avoid one?? It could be either.....

One what? But seriously, I have a squier that I was thinking about, but I don't really want to do it to a squier.

 

[Darryl Hattenhauer]

On this 2010 Dot, Epiphone must have stained this fretboard dark during production, because I bought it new, and it came with that super dark fretboard I've always enjoyed....

Could be. I think Gibson used to do it back in the day.

 

[bobouz]

Could be. I think Gibson used to do it back in the day.

It’s a possibility, but I don’t recall ever seeing a Gibson from any era with an ebonized board or bridge. On the other hand, it’s been the bread & butter of pacific rim manufacturer’s for decades. Here’s a recent Indonesian-made Epiphone that has almost assuredly been treated (bonus BGUF!):

 

[AcornHouse]

It’s a possibility, but I don’t recall ever seeing a Gibson from any era with an ebonized board or bridge. On the other hand, it’s been the bread & butter of pacific rim manufacturer’s for decades. Here’s a recent Indonesian-made Epiphone that has almost assuredly been treated (bonus BGUF!):

Gibson most likely has, and still does, blackens their ebony fretboards. So, not really ebonizing but still using a dye to get rid of any streaks.