ebony or rosewood for fingerboards?

noodlenot

what do you prefer? and why?

Jazzaferri

Ebony...denser and harder

Bones

Ebony. I've never used rosewood but I don't like the feel of it as much as ebony which is harder and denser in general I think.

I also think that rosewood has porosity though. I've used it for back and sides and, like other porous woods, you need to use a grain filler for that. I'm not sure if they use a grain filler for a rosewood fingerboard or not though.

jonpowl

The best thing about my Gitane DG-255 is the ebony fingerboard. Great feel and attack, easy to bend strings. I have two Gibson Les Paul Specials, one with rosewood and one with ebony and I think the ebony is easier to play, but not by much. It just feels better for some unknown reason, perhaps the hardness, density and solid feel. That said, I spend more time playing the Les Paul Special SL with the rosewood fretboard.

noodlenot

thanks for the replies. you guys should try african blackwood on a fingerboard, a black rosewood (maybe jazzaferri knows it from the woodwind world) - harder and heavier than ebony, and } much more stable. But bone´s right - ebony´s pores are tiny and the wood has a wonderful, homogenous feeling to it. i was asking because i´m partial to african blackwood (much more stable, as i said, and an wonderful taptone, much lower damping), but most of the selmer (and classical) guitars use ebony as the de facto fingerboard wood - but i´ve noticed that at least bob holo has some guitars with rosewood fingerboards, hence my question.
BTW, do you guys get to touch with the string on the actual fingerboard?

thanks,
miguel.

noodlenot

double post...

noodlenot

3 times... what´s up with this? sorry folks.

Bones

Yeah, Noodle, that's a good point that I hadn't thought of since I've never had a rosewood fingerboard but I would THINK that it would wear faster....

...but that is only speculation so maybe someone else with experience could chime in.

Al Watsky

Brazilian RW boards feel good, look good and sound good.
The Indian RW has much more corse grain and will wear more quickly than Braz. or Ebony.
It seems to vary from tree to tree , no surprise there.
Ebony is a better material IMO although a nice piece of RW can look very lush.
I generally prefer Ebony.
Some RW seems to have a fibre density very close to ebony, but that seems to be vanishingly rare these days.
I have several utility guitars that have Indian RW boards, all have pretty deeply rutted boards.
In practice it hasn't prevented them from being used but will complicate the matter of installing a fresh set of frets, very slightly.
Ebony

frater

Not an expert but I think I remember an old video of Bob explaining rosewood is better for intonation. There should be a thread somewhere...

noodlenot

frater: i´ll try looking for that thread, thanks.

Al: you´re right, i have an electric ibanez with an wide grain Indian RW (maybe sonokeling) fingerboard and the pores are just tremendous, huge, rather unsightly. the inlays also look strange there, the pores catch my attention first. maybe it will make fretting tougher, i don´t really know, i´ve only have fretted ebony so far. my problem with ebony is how easy it cups/bows, and how much it moves with humidity changes. it sure is a beautiful wood.
a friend of mine has a guitar with african blackwood and it´s almost indistinguishable from ebony. rio RW or cocobolo can make for a very beautiful fingerboard (or guitar, for that matter).