New wood for fretboards?

[Rick]

Altered on the molecular level!!!!!

https://www.cnn.com/science/superwood-10-times-stronger-than-steel-spc

Can a fretboard be too hard?
Probably need special tools for frets. I've seen, though never played aluminium fretboards so it might work.

 

[Hodgo]

Neat. I don’t think fretboards need to be any harder though!

Speaking of, ever cut down locust? Now that is some tough friggin wood.

 

[teleme01]

It depends on the tone you're after

 

[aarontunes]

Yes, this "superwood" is the topic de-jour on all the guitar forums right now.

But bear in mind its intended purpose is to compete with steel as a building material. It is touted as being "6 x lighter", but that means 6x lighter than steel! Steel weighs about 15x more than your average guitar wood, so that is gonna make a brick house of a guitar.

I don't see a lot of applications for guitar.

 

[Chuckles]

But bear in mind its intended purpose is to compete with steel as a building material. It is touted as being "6 x lighter", but that means 6x lighter than steel! Steel weighs about 15x more than your average guitar wood, so that is gonna make a brick house of a guitar.

Just when you thought Gibson couldn’t possibly make the Les Paul any heavier…

 

[mrpinter]

Speaking of hard fretboard woods - what about Richlite. If not technically a wood, it makes great fretboards. It's made from layers of engineered paper infused with thermosetting resin, pressed and cut into shape. It is very stable, hard, and sustainable. I believe Martin, Gibson and Strandberg have used it for fretboards. It is the source of controversy among guitar traditionalists (who even have trouble with superior tone woods like Pau Ferro - like I use on Pinter guitars - because it doesn't look like Rosewood or Ebony.) Richlite can look like black ebony but is more stable and harder.

@aarontunes, does Warmoth have any plans to use it? Or does it already and I'm just out of the loop?

 

[Hodgo]

Speaking of hard fretboard woods - what about Richlite. If not technically a wood, it makes great fretboards. It's made from layers of engineered paper infused with thermosetting resin, pressed and cut into shape. It is very stable, hard, and sustainable. I believe Martin, Gibson and Strandberg have used it for fretboards. It is the source of controversy among guitar traditionalists (who even have trouble with superior tone woods like Pau Ferro - like I use on Pinter guitars - because it doesn't look like Rosewood or Ebony.) Richlite can look like black ebony but is more stable and harder.

@aarontunes, does Warmoth have any plans to use it? Or does it already and I'm just out of the loop?

I have one Richlite fretboard and it’s so perfectly uniformly black it almost is uncanny. With how difficult and expensive it is to either source or stain a uniform chunk of ebony, I hope to see many manufacturers moving towards it as a sustainable replacement.

 

[aarontunes]

@aarontunes, does Warmoth have any plans to use it? Or does it already and I'm just out of the loop?

No plans to use Richlite ATM.

We've experimented with it in the past, but found it too expensive and arriving with problems of its own form a manufacturing POV.

 

[Don O]

Speaking of hard fretboard woods - what about Richlite. If not technically a wood, it makes great fretboards. It's made from layers of engineered paper infused with thermosetting resin, pressed and cut into shape. It is very stable, hard, and sustainable. I believe Martin, Gibson and Strandberg have used it for fretboards. It is the source of controversy among guitar traditionalists (who even have trouble with superior tone woods like Pau Ferro - like I use on Pinter guitars - because it doesn't look like Rosewood or Ebony.) Richlite can look like black ebony but is more stable and harder.

@aarontunes, does Warmoth have any plans to use it? Or does it already and I'm just out of the loop?

My 2007 LP Supreme has a Richlite board.

 

[Schneidas]

My 2007 LP Supreme has a Richlite board.

View attachment 67580

View attachment 67581

wow, looks just like Ebony!