Official Luthiers Forum!

Is it just me, or have the prices gone through the roof lately?

Yes, they are catching up with the synthetics.

$132 bdf

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"Practice enough till the results aren't hopes but expectations" forum member Peter Havriluk

I was wondering if they would be going down since the change in standards (what I call the Bob Taylor factor). What I remember of the story is that when Bob bought his mill they told him that one in ten trees had the kind of black color that was usable. Using the other nine should have open up the supply (and the last few fretboards I've bought are certainly the new standard).

Ebony boards are cresting 30$ a pop now:(

I'm always looking for alternative woods to make bridges or fingerboards out of. I may start to give stuff like Padauk a try (those are readily available in Taiwan)

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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

Check out Arya Woods. I bought a whole bunch of ebony boards from them at $10 a pop. It's not the highest quality, kind of a mix you have to by 50 at that price, but it's good and they might have A grade stuff at good prices too, not sure. They don't have a functional website at the moment but they do have a facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/Aryawoods-Inte ... 961213917/

Tai Fu wrote:
"I'm always looking for alternative woods to make bridges or fingerboards out of. I may start to give stuff like Padauk a try (those are readily available in Taiwan)"

There are a lot of great alternatives to ebony for fretboards, but the question has always been "Can I get that in black?"

Or more importantly, can I sell it with that?

Thanks for the link!

It’s been 2 years since I bought ebony and rosewood, just before the new CITES rosewood restrictions. I’ve worked with a guy in India for several years. I’m not a huge customer, but I let him know upfront that I’m picky as hell, and he’s been very respectful of that. My book cost for the premium Indian ebony boards on my shelf from that purchase is CAD28 — a heck of a lot less than what other suppliers are currently listing. It’s super black and clean. Wish I’d bought more. I do like ebony, and I like it black.


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So what's with the CITES restriction on all rosewoods? Is CITES trying to clamp down on luthiers or something or is there something else going on?

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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

Essential they are attempting to prevent rosewood poaching, mostly used for Chinese furniture. We just caught caught in the wheels of that bus. There's lots of noise about instrument wood becoming exempt from CITES, as it was never the intended target...

Good luck regulating anything Chinese unless they ban ALL wood import/export altogether. They are experts at finding their ways around regulation. Unless they make it so even pallet wood is illegal to move across international borders they will find a way.

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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

Price is one thing. What I hate to see is the drop in quality.
I bought most of my wood 2000-2008 when I had money and a job.
Now I have neither
But I'll never have to buy wood again and more time to put it to use.

I started factoring in rosewood for fingerboards, where I could, a few years ago. My favorites are Cocobolo and Bois de Rose. These days they are getting as expensive and hard to find as ebony. Hard times ahead.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I recently used pau ferro for a fingerboard. It is for a guitar I plan to keep. It will be interesting to see how this non-rosewood, non-ebony, but hard and dense wood, will fare.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

I've used Pau Ferro for a number of fingerboards and it seems to work fine. It is relatively dark and close grained and doesn't show dirt excessively.

I agree and it is fairly easy to find quarter sawn. That in itself is hard to do with ebony these days.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Anyone tried massaranduba from brazil dark brown wood imported from brasil used for decking. somewhat dense, and very hard , tough and durable. Price is very reasonable,Some bowmakers are using it as a sub for pernambuco.

Interesting...

I have lots of fingerboards. My issue has been binding. I find allied has the best prices by a long stretch. Have tried some of the alternatives, and I’m still not sure.

Steve

This thread got me thinking. So, looking at one of my old order forms from Luthier's Mercantile, dated 10/22/1980, a classical sized ebony fretboard, 2nd, was 3.75. As I recall, the firsts were not much more, but since the only difference I could discern, was slight streaking, that was barely noticeable, I always bought the seconds. For tops, I bought Sitka thirds, that were very nice, for $ 6.00 a pop.

For context, I found this on the internet: "100 in 1980 equals $327.55 in 2019." https://www.saving.org/inflation/inflat ... &year=1980. I don't know how accurate this is, but using this figure as an approximation, that $ 3.75 fretboard would be $ 12.28 today, or a little less than 2.5 times more, adjusting only for inflation.

So still less than half the going rate...

I recently got a few Katalox and Pau Ferro blanks, and my early impressions are good, particularly of
the Katalox, which seems very stable, too.

Another alternative I do not know if you guys will consider... but there are people on Aliexpress selling tonewoods too.

I found Indian Rosewood fingerboards for 3.50 each, coffee estate rosewood 2.50 each, and ebony fretboards (B grade) about 8.50 each.

Message them and order a little more and they will find ways to ship cheaply, they always mark it as gift so you don't get taxed...

I do not know how rigorously CITES regulations are enforced in the US but those guys do not give a hoot about CITES. I found out a lot of countries (like many Eastern European countries) enforce them half heartedly and you can actually get inexpensive Brazilian Rosewood there... So I do not know if you can get in trouble for shipping in Indian rosewood fingerboards to the US...

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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

However misguided I might think some of the regulations may be, breaking the law has never been my strong point. I really don't need the ATF greeting me in the morning in flak jackets with M16s in hand. When it comes to regulated materials I don't mind using what I have legally acquired but I don't really want to contribute to poaching and smuggling.
Aliexpress is a mixed bag of legitimate sellers and fraudsters. Do you really want to get involved in illegal dealings with dubious characters?