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Large
Corporately Owned
Companies Don't Use Ebony Fingerboards.
1. Price
Prohibitive.
Good Quality Jet Black Gaboon Ebony like Ed Roman uses
costs upwards of 25 to 30 times more than Rosewood.
2. Hard To Work With.
It has a severe blunting effect on cutters. In leveling out the board a
reduced angle of at least 20 degrees is absolutely required. Also it requires an
increase in shoe & pressure bars to prevent wood from riding or chattering on
the cutters.
3. Limited Shelf Life.
Ebony is highly resistant to any preservative treatment.
4. Damages Easily (Only During
Construction.)
I have to be careful
how I write this one. Someone could read it and miss the point entirely. Ebony
is easily damaged during construction but once the guitar is built Ebony is
far Stronger, Stiffer & Much More Stable.
Even
though almost any type of Ebony is 10 times stronger than any type of Rosewood
and helps stabilize and strengthen the neck it will crack under the pressure of
the new automatic fretting machines which slam all of the frets down hard into
the fingerboard. This means that Ebony fingerboards should be fretted by hand
and therefore require hours of labor that the major
companies do not want to pay for.
An interesting note. I am writing this 12/17/05 at 11.00 PM
PST. About 3 hours ago myself and my shop foreman went out to
see Robert Schimmel at the Monte Carlo. I mentioned to him that I was
writing an article about Rosewood versus Ebony. I asked him if he had anything
to contribute. He mentioned a couple of minor points and then he said something
to me that really hit home. He told me that Brian, one of our inlay artists,
was working on a neck earlier today and he had an accident with the dremel. He
had ruined a fingerboard, not just any fingerboard. This fingerboard was one
that we were doing a winged serpent $3,000.00 inlay to. To make a long sad
story short, The fingerboard was kaput and the inlay job was almost done. This
was going to cost me about $1,200.00 out of pocket. We could salvage all the cut
pieces of Abalone, MOP, Recon Stone & Sterling Silver, but all the labor was out
the window. Ouch !!!
I had a brief moment of clarity as I realized if we had
been doing this job on a Rosewood board the whole job could have been salvaged
for about $50.00 in labor. I had another brief moment of clarity as the
realization set in that this had never happened to me before. I briefly
sympathized with the bean counters for about 3 seconds. Don't worry I'm
still not switching to Rosewood !!!
5.
Planned Obsolescence. I might be reaching a little here: Theoretically you
could wear out a rosewood fingerboard, thus needing a replacement fingerboard
and new fret job. Or maybe just go out and buy another guitar. Ebony
is so much stronger than Rosewood that it might actually prevent you from
breaking your neck if you should drop the guitar. Planned obsolescence has
always been a real concern of any major corporation. No one likes to talk about
it but let's face it. If
they built it too well,
people would keep them forever, and never need to buy a new one.
Ebony has less movement during use than Rosewood so it will also prevent a lot
of neck warping. Corporate Business 101 reads like the Ferengi rules of
acquisition.
6. Inlay Work Cost.
Remember the bean counters at these large corporations watch
everything like a hawk. Being more brittle than Rosewood, Ebony requires a
much more skilled person to do inlay work than rosewood. (More Skilled
Usually Transfers into Higher Paid)
Benefits Of Using Ebony
1. Ebony is much harder and polishes up beautifully so that the neck feels
smooth and slick. It's much harder and therefore you can get a better
percussive tone when doing two hand tapping and hammer on's or playing without a
pick.
2. Ebony reduces finger fatigue. If you play for hours your fingers
will appreciate the smoothness. It's barely noticeable but the smoothness makes
it so that you can play longer without getting sore fingers.
3. Cosmetically Beautiful, The Jet Black Ebony contrasts nicely with
the binding and/or inlay material, also it effectively hides any filler for a
much cleaner look.
4. Ebony is much stronger and much more stable. It helps keep your neck
straighter and also protects it from breaking.
Below is an old article I wrote back in
2001
Why won't PRS use Ebony Fingerboards on their
guitars?
It really rankles me that PRS
refuses to offer Ebony fingerboards. I mean what's the deal, I thought PRS was
supposed to be a Premium High End Guitar?
Well Excuuuse Meeee!!! Ok there is a reason and here it is:
Since most people
don't know, I must first state the fact that PRS is an entirely machine made
guitar.
"PRS Guitars Are Entirely
Machine Made"
got that... are you sure?
Ed Roman's Theory of Ebontivity...
Ok, because when the
next time you are in a Sam Ash Store or most Guitar
Center, the 17 year old
commissioned sales boy automaton will more than likely tell you it is entirely
hand made
with violins playing in the
background.
That's BS to the
tenth power!!! He's not lying, he's just ignorant. Ok, enough bashing of
ignorant salespeople and on with the show.
I want to say I
personally know several extremely knowledgeable people who work at
Guitar Center & Sam Ash. Sadly for the consumer these people are not
the ones usually in the guitar department. There are of course
exceptions !!!!
If you use an
automated fret installation system that rams the frets down into the fingerboard
there is a very good chance you will split the ebony. In fact I have seen it
done at the old PBC Guitar shop in Pennsylvania when they were
Ghost Building all of the Ibanez USA guitars
back in the mid 90's.
Consequently, I
don't think that PRS will be doing any Ebony fretboards now or in the future.
They are concentrating more on automation than on hand building.
When I took the tour
of the Jackson factory, I saw a custom made machine for pressing the frets in,
but they were hand installing each one when I was there. They have semi
automated it and therefore they have achieved an intelligent balance between
hand made and robotic made.
All of the small
builders are installing and hand fitting frets one at a time. This process makes
it very easy to do Ebony fingerboards, This gives the hand builder the definite
edge.
Ebony is a great
wood for fingerboard. It costs about 20 times as
much as Rosewood but on many guitars I like it better. There are exceptions
however .
Ebony on a Les Paul
style guitar is not the preferred fingerboard. The guitar just does not sound
like a Les Paul when there is an Ebony fingerboard. Zack Wylde, Peter Frampton,
& Ace Frehley to name a few use Ebony fretboards on Les Paul's but their sound
is not the true Les Paul sound.
None of them use stock pickups and I don't believe the guitars are even made by
Gibson, I would bet money they are all
Ghostbuilt by third party boutique
builders.
Ebony sounds great
on a guitar with a long neck, it's more percussive, as long as you don't have a
real hard wood body like solid Maple or solid Bubinga it makes for a great tonal
combination.
Good tone is derived
from combining different woods.
We hang up fingerboards, & body woods and tap
them for resonance and pitch. Most small hand builders will at least attempt to
marry the different woods together sometimes in thirds, fifths or in unison
pitch. I am sure Paul Reed Smith was doing that in the first 2 to 3 years they
were building their guitars. I am positive they are not doing it today.
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