Flat sawn wood for fingerboard

[Quickstep192]

I was looking around the shop for something to make a fingerboard for an experimental banjo I'm working on. I found a piece of hard maple that has been knocking around the shop for a while, so I know it’s well seasoned. While I was measuring it to make sure it was long enough, I noticed that it was slightly cupped. I can joint and plane out the cupping when I cut it to fingerboard thickness, but I’m wondering if it might cup again because it’s flat sawn (grain shows up as arcs on the end grain).

What do you think?

Should I just bite the bullet and get a quartersawn board?

[runamuck]

It probably won't cup again but unless you're planning a bound fretboard, vertical grain is best because it won't shrink as much when the humidity drops, exposing fret ends.

[mirwa]

Flat sawn IMO for a fingerboard is perfectly fine.

Flat sawn necks I don’t agree with, every time I scrap a manufacturers neck under warranty it’s alway the flat sawn necks that have the most problems.

Steve

[printer2]

Birds eye fretboards are flat sawn.

[charles Tauber]

I've only used a flat sawn fingerboard once many years ago. It was an ebony board on a 7-string classical guitar that I made for myself (i.e. it was wide). It's cupped, even though it was planed flat initially. It's concave up, exactly the opposite of typical fingerboard curvatures. If it teaches nothing else, makes sure a flat sawn board is glued-down so that it warps concave down giving a convex curvature to the playing surface of the board.

[Quickstep192]

I jointed and planed the board flat and it’s already cupped a little. I’ll try again, but it might be time to give up on this board and convert it to heat.

[runamuck]

After you joint and plane make sure to either sticker it or stand it up so that both faces are exposed to the same RH.

[John Arnold]

Birds eye fretboards are flat sawn.

As are most Fender necks. I tend to favor quartered fingerboards (ebony), but I have used flatsawn on many occasions without issue....other than having the frets stick out during dry periods. But that can happen with most any guitar, regardless of the type or cut of the fingerboard wood.

[Quickstep192]

I'm going to joint the cupped board one more time, but it's probably headed to the fireplace.

Over the weekend I stopped at my local lumber store and found a bea-utiful piece of perfectly quartered highly curly maple. I think it's going to be quite the sight...

[charles Tauber]

Maple gets dirty quickly unless finished. Finishing a fingerboard brings its own issues with wear of the finish.

[Quickstep192]

I’m planning to put some pure Tung oil on it to pop the grain. This should also pre-darken it.

[charles Tauber]

A penetrating oil, such as tung oil, will make gluing frets down, if necessary, difficult.

[LouieAtienza]

I come from the Charvel guitar world, where unfinished (except for light oil)maple necks are the norm, and dirty necks are prized not shunned. I can't say the same aesthetic holds true for acoustic instruments. A lot of electric bass builders (and more electric guitar makers nowadays) will infuse maple boards with acrylic through a vacuum process, which also hardens and stabilizes it as well as make it more stain-resistant and easier to clean. The use of different dyes can give dramatic effects as well (Jason Kostal does this with burl maple in his stained-glass rosettes.)

I had owned many an unfinished Charvel neck without problems, and I love the way they feel after years of "hand burnishing..."

BTW, if you just leave the board flat on a table, it will cup especially now here in the NE in winter with the windows closed and the heat on.

Back around 1988-1989 or so, before he died, and before the Custom Shop existed in its current form, Fender came out with the first SRV (Stevie Ray Vaughn) model Strat. Since Fender wanted to replicate the "unfinished" feel of the neck with basically a new guitar (relicking was not as popular then), Fender finished the back of the neck with CA glue - the first time I ever heard of CA as a finish on a wood product. I liked the idea so much (I was a teen then) that I shaved the necks on my electrics and coated them with Krazy Glue. NOT something you want to do indoors as I found out. I would however, after planning the board down, glue it right away to the neck using epoxy or other glue, not containing water, and cut the slots after doing the CA treatment.

[Quickstep192]

Louie,



“Fender finished the back of the neck with CA glue - the first time I ever heard of CA as a finish on a wood product”

Are you suggesting that the surface of a fretboard could be finished with CA?


“BTW, if you just leave the board flat on a table, it will cup especially now here in the NE in winter with the windows closed and the heat on”

I learned this lesson the hard way after bringing home a bunch of lumber and leaving on the basement floor and returning to what looked like potato chips. Since then, nothing is left flat on any surface anywhere, ever.

[murrmac123]

A flat (ie "plane") surface is exactly what you want to lay the board on, but you need to sticker it (and any other boards you lay on top) , so that there is an equal exposure to the ambient humidity on all sides.

Laying a substantial weight on top of the stack wouldn't do any harm either,