Rainsong fretboards

[steelvibe]

I believe they are come kind of hard composite material but what kind? They look different micarta but more like richlite. Anybody?

[Earl49]

There was a factory tour photo essay posted recentl on how Rainsongs are built, and one of the photos show epoxy being poured into a mould containing the shark inlays, IIRC.

[jgillard]

I was going to say the fretboard is epoxy. Sounds odd, but works extremely well in practice.

[jonfields45]

In the integrated circuit biz, epoxy is mixed with filler, usually fine sand, to get a very hard and tough material for packaging. While the epoxy RS uses is interesting, you need to know the filler if you want to second guess the fingerboard's material properties compared to wood. Jon

[steelvibe]

Yep. That is what I suspected and it looks as if the bridge is made of the same material. In my assumptions are true than the material must be very hard in order to handle the tension of the strings.

[perttime]

Other makers seem to use carbon fibers in epoxy for fretboard and bridge too. On the Rainsong website it says "composite", and I would not be surprised if that composite contains carbon.