Building a guitar

a friend of a friend has just built this rather sexy bass:

Edited by Dean - October 01 2008 at 05:43

I have an ebony board on one of my strats and to me it feels similar to a lacquered maple board.

Pau Ferro feels almost identical to rosewood. They are genetic cousins after all. It tends to be a bit drier (less natural oil) and so some say it feels a bit "faster" to the touch. I almost always add a fretboard oil to protect the wood and so the difference is essentially lost on me. Pau Ferro does tend to be lighter in color (often a sort of dusty dark mustard color so it might not look as good as you want with that body. A little fretboard oil will darken it some, but not to a real rosewood color.

Ebony, on the other hand, really does have quite a different feel. It is harder, denser and smoother than rosewood and so it does feel faster to the touch. A lot of the old Jackson, Ibanez and Kramer "Shred Machines of the 80's had ebony boards. If you're into that you'll probably like ebony. It is tougher than rosewood or maple so you won't wear the playing grooves into it anytime soon either. You should expect to pay about 20%- 30% more for a re-fret though. Ebony likes to chip and split so fret removal must be done more slowly and carefully and little repairs using superglue and/or epoxy are common making the job take longer. I wouldn't let a fact like that over-ride playability, but it is nice to know in advance.

Roye Albrighton (for whom I originally built that body) asked for a flame maple/rosewood neck with no inlay and a traditional Fender shape for the headstock. Roye got busy with touring before the neck was completely finished and sort of lost interest in getting it all done. It did look good without the inlay dots though (side dots only). That body color just cries out for a nice dark rosewood fretboard. Roy wanted a black pickguard and gold hardware with it. i think the parts Nick used look better than the mock-up I did with the other parts. Nice job Nick!

Edited by Trademark - August 14 2008 at 19:06

A small update for everyone, in a few weeks I should be in a position to finally order the neck to complete this project, I'm still not sure exactly what woods, fret size etc that I'm going to go for but I'm definitely going to be getting a neck that's not normal on a strat. I would have ordered the neck earlier but I've had a few financial issues in the past couple of months.

Very nice ! 

Has it really been 2 months since I last updated this thread? Anyway I'm glad to say that I finally have the new body that I bought from Trademark, and it's a really nice one too.



Now I just need to wait for my university to give me the bursary they owe me and I can order the neck.

^ agreed. Tall frets also make bending strings much easier if you use a very low action, they're essentially a less extreme version of scalloped fretboards.

^Wouldn't you be able to get the same effect by lowering the action of the guitar?  

It's 'only' Indian Rosewood which is comparatively cheap (for an exotic wood), if it were all Brazilian Rosewood then it would be very expensive, and even if I could afford a Brazilian Rosewood neck Warmoth don't export them.