Mercy, usually I’m in agreement with your posts but have to disagree with you about the long term viability of walnut fingerboards. Gmel mentioned Ovation’s use of walnut fingerboards before I could, but they weren’t the only company to use it. I’ve owned a couple of 1920’s vintage Ludwig banjos that were made entirely out of walnut, including the fretboards, and still own a pre-WWII National resonator mandolin with a walnut fretboard.
All of the instruments mentioned in that last paragraph, including a couple of Ovation guitars I owned for a while, had fully functional fretboards. All of them were used when I got them, and all of them got played a lot while in my possession.
Now, I have seen rosewood fingerboards with deep runnels dug into them by owners who apparently never trimmed their fingernails and maybe allowed skin oils to accumulate (or perhaps oiled their fingerboards way too often and softened the wood as a result.) If the same lackadaisical attitude toward instrument maintenance and personal hygiene is used, there could definitely be similar damage done to walnut fingerboards, as well.
But if reasonable care is taken - keeping your hands clean, keeping your nails trimmed, avoiding the temptation of slathering the fretboard with oil every time the strings get changed - there’s no reason at all why walnut can’t be used for fingerboards. I know that for a fact because I’ve got an eighty year old National mandolin in my music room that I’ve played a LOT.
From what I can tell, both it and its walnut fingerboard will still be fully functional in another eighty years.
Hope that makes sense.
Wade Hampton Miller
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