acoustic guitar maple fretboard?????

[chas52]

why don't acoustic guitars have maple fretboards??? (if they do, I don't remember seeing one.)

just wonderin'.

[brad4d8]

I don't think I've never seen one in person, but have seen at least one on an LP cover. I think it was a Penco.
Brad

[scooter74]

Probably an aesthetic thing but maybe there's more to it.

[Long813]

Found a thread on UG:

Originally Posted by Mark Rich

As a builder I would say no maple is used because of the unfinished state of the fretboard, ebony and rosewood retain their own oils and react well with the oil of the fingers .Maple does not react favorably to oil from any source. It turns blackish and has a gummy feel when it is in contact with oils. The oil makes dirt stick to the wood hence the discoloring of it.
Violyns do use maple but are dyed w/ black to prevent this problem.

Originally Posted by SnoDog

Here is an Ibanez NW40 - It really looks beautiful!!












12 String:



I just found this guitar while Googling... Man now I really want it!!

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum....php?t=1009344


Enjoy. Looks nice with FM sides.

[blue]

Maple fretboards, usually dyed black were used a long time ago by companies like national. They got a bad rep because the dye sort of made the wood degrade. Hard to come back from the reputation of being the cheap alternative for ebony and rosewood that didn't quite work out...

[bfloyd6969]

That Ibby looks nice all "mapled" out I bet that is one bright sounding guitar!!!

[McCawber]

I guess I'm to much of a purist. I expect a dark fingerboard on my acoustics. Frankly, the Micarta on some of the mid-lower end guitars doesn't bother me as much as maple. (So much for my "purist" theory . . . . )

[akadave]

I guess I dont understand it either. Many electrics have maple board and not just Fender. It works fine and has for years....its the aesthetics.

[sachi]

Originally Posted by akadave

I guess I dont understand it either. Many electrics have maple board and not just Fender. It works fine and has for years....its the aesthetics.

Well, there is the problem of getting stained. I remember a friend in the 60s who had a Strat with the maple fingerboard, and it was stained gray in places from his sweat and dirt.

[bfloyd6969]

Originally Posted by sachi

Well, there is the problem of getting stained. I remember a friend in the 60s who had a Strat with the maple fingerboard, and it was stained gray in places from his sweat and dirt.

True, but that just adds the mojo

[Unplugged 2010]

Wow, digging the maple 12 string Ibby. Very sexy! Must be real bright sounding though.

[SuperUkeGal]

That is a beautiful guitar.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by chas52

why don't acoustic guitars have maple fretboards??? (if they do, I don't remember seeing one.)

just wonderin'.

I've seen a few in Russia, but you're right, they're very rare indeed in the West, particularly when compared to frequency of maple fingerboards on Fender Stratocasters.

I suspect a lot of it has to do with the relative string gauges of electric and acoustic guitars. Even on those Strats the strings chew through the lacquer and create discolored spots on the wood - it's always easy to tell which notes the owner of a maple fingerboard Strat plays, just by the wear patterns!

The gauge of most acoustic guitar string sets is considerably heavier than most electric string sets, and so they'd wear through to the wood below even faster. It's virtually certain that the immaculate fingerboards on the maple Ibanez guitars pictured in this thread have received little to no playing time.

The maple fingerboards I saw when I was in Russia were, without exception, pretty scuzzy-looking. But then, they were getting used, and serving the function they were intended for.

Anyway, short version: maple fingerboards are less practical for acoustic guitars than for electrics because the heavier acoustic strings chew up the protective lacquer coating and discolor the wood that much faster than the lighter gauge electric strings will.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by blue

Maple fretboards, usually dyed black were used a long time ago by companies like national. They got a bad rep because the dye sort of made the wood degrade. Hard to come back from the reputation of being the cheap alternative for ebony and rosewood that didn't quite work out...

Right. There was a lot of pearwood in particular that got used to simulate ebony back then. The black aniline dye that they used on it can sometimes corrode the wood after a few decades, so that when you touch it the wood under your fingers crumbles like sawdust, and you've got this black dust on your fingertips.

It's bad enough when it was used as a fingerboard wood, which is something you find on old mandolins and banjos a lot. But some companies like Orpheum took it a step further, and used pearwood dyed with black aniline dye for structural parts: a three piece lamination of maple, black-dyed pearwood and maple was used for Orpheum banjo necks. It's kind of sad and kind of creepy when you form a chord on one of those banjos and the black center lamination on the neck crumbles under your thumb.


whm

[JTT]

Ive never played one myself... i dunno