Favourite Fretboards?

[tedtan]

Ebony. Raw or tung oiled maple works, too.

Ebony, but for me it's all about the looks

People talk about "feel", but when are you ever actually touching the fretboard? My finger touches the string, and the string presses against the metal fret. At no point (I think) does my finger ever touch the wood.

Are people playing with super small frets, low action and pressing really hard?

When bending and vibratoing.

 

[bostjan]

To be pedantic, Parker fretboards are carbon fiber and glass fiber with epoxy resin, not phenolic, which is a cellulose-based resin. Parker boards use no cellulose.

I've rarely come across a fretboard I hated. I had a Hondo with a reverse radius fretboard that sucked (the curvature was concave, making the D and G strings a pain to reach and making cording very difficult), and I had a cheap Stella with some sort of hardened wax cardboard fretboard once, which was awful.

I have an Oni with an acrylic impregnated macassar ebony board, which rules, and I have a bunch of Parkers, which are phenomenal. I've played cheaper phenolic boards, which are "interesting", but IDK, feel great but a little weird. I'm also not a fan of hard open grain woods like Wenge. Pretty much any wood board with a good texture and aesthetic that matches the context aesthetics of the guitar, and is amply durable, is fine.

 

[Zado]

Rosewood

 

[Hollowway]

Just for aesthetic reasons: Maple > Ebony > Everything Else > Rosewood

Couldn't have said it better myself! I voted, "other," because I like novel looks, but it's totally dependent on the build. For instance, I like mexican cocobolo with sapwood on light green colored guitars. I like yellowheart on buckeye burl guitars. Etc.

 

[Hollowway]

Rosewood

Go home, nobody loves you.

 

[cip 123]

Ebony, nut fussy about the colour. Closely followed by maple, cause man do I love a dirty maple board on a strat.

 

[BMO]

I'm leaning alot more towards maple if I buy new these days after learning how a lot of the other trees are harvested. Not trying to get preachy at all, but ebony is on the verge of being endangered not only because of the music industry, but also the furniture and construction businesses of the world. It grows super slow and most of the chopped down trees are scrapped for not being dark enough if nobody calls dibs on the lighter trees. Rosewood already crossed this threshold and it's slowly turning into the new ivory when it comes to regulation, licensing and outright bans. Alot of companies are starting to switch to totally different and dyed woods for this reason. Ibanez is using a lot of Jatoba lately for instance.

 

[jephjacques]

jerky

 

[oracles]

It grows super slow and most of the chopped down trees are scrapped for not being dark enough if nobody calls dibs on the lighter trees.

I've never understood the "it has to be blacker than the blackest black times infinity" mentality for ebony. Jet black, plain ebony seems so unremarkable and boring to me, that said, I think pale moon looks tacky on 98% of builds it features on. To each their own though.

 

[Zado]

Go home, nobody loves you.

V He does

Rosewood

 

[oracles]

How many times am I going to waste my interbreath explaining.....

EDIT: fuck it, I can't be bothered with you again.

 

[gunch]

esp waxed and buffed ebony or synthetics/ composites

 

[protest]

 

[Hollowway]

Rosewood

I will say, though, that streaky rosewood is cool. I have a couple of guitars with super nice rosewood (like you see in acoustic sides/back) and it looks GLORIOUS!

 

[pullingstraws]

Voted rosewood. I think ebony looks great and I"m guilty of dyeing boards to match it, but it feels off to me. A nice dark rosewood board with minimal streaking is probably my favorite.

 

[A-Branger]

because the black hardware making the brown pop pisses me off.

yyyyyyyyup!..or even worse having a "black" guitar (or black themed) with a chunk of "brown" on it....... even worse when the neck is painted black too

I've never understood the "it has to be blacker than the blackest black times infinity" mentality for ebony. Jet black, plain ebony seems so unremarkable and boring to me

see above ^^ its more for the aesthetics choices of the guitar. A simple black board matches everything

example A...... nothing wrong with a streaky board like that, but if it was on a different finish. On a "black" guitar it just looks soooo wrong. Specially when the headstock is left un-finish boring neck wood. That headstock should have matched either the fretboard or the body paint. It jsut adds another level of "brown" into the mix that shouldnt be there and makes it "pop" more than it should

 

[CapinCripes]

Ebony and maple most of the time but I don't hate a nice dark piece of rosewood like my BCR has. So, I usually hunt for things with ebony or maple but if I come across something nice that so happens to come with a nicer rosewood board I don't dismiss it, although the back of my mind usually says, "but if it had an ebony board it would be even sweeter"
I do hate the light sandpaper-esque stuff though. never dealt with richlite or phenolic but they sound like something I’d like. What I absolutely despise is pale moon ebony. it just looks weird on just about everything.

 

[PBGas]

Love any kind of roasted maple neck and fretboard.

 

[protest]

example A...... nothing wrong with a streaky board like that, but if it was on a different finish. On a "black" guitar it just looks soooo wrong. Specially when the headstock is left un-finish boring neck wood. That headstock should have matched either the fretboard or the body paint. It jsut adds another level of "brown" into the mix that shouldnt be there and makes it "pop" more than it should

The unfinished boring neck wood is oiled finished roasted Birdseye maple ...

 

[A-Branger]

The unfinished boring neck wood is oiled finished roasted Birdseye maple ...

yeah I remembered after I made my post

still I find boring headstocks like that a la "strat" (un-finish headstock to match neck with different fretobard)