Streaked Ebony is a feature now?

Anything but Rosewood is fine with me. Of course, I'd prefer a perfect piece of Ebony, but it's getting hard to find. I actually like the feel/look of the new G&L Cherrywood fingerboards a lot. But that's just me.

 

A don't mind a bit of brown streaking in ebony. It makes it look like wood. I built this bass a few years ago. Someone asked me if I made all the black plastic parts as well as the woodwork.

 

I mean, who wants a guitar that looks like it has nipples?

 

Always did.

But ebony is used in many musical instruments. Violins / violas, cellos, string basses, piano keys etc. Its not like guitars are the only instruments using it. There are chessboards and other artist type pieces as well.

I'm not aware of much furniture using ebony.

 

Far too many Bluegrassers are entrenched in dogmas of the past . Not to say that it is a bad thing , it is none the less real .

 

+1

I've learned quite a bit in this discussion.

 

Agreed! I also use persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) and Texas mesquite. They're both excellent for bridges and fingerboards, anything where you would use ebony or rosewood. Mesquite is considered a weed tree and is plentiful, and persimmon is a true ebony - just not black.

 

Yeah, Fender needs to read the room better. I bought a fully customized Warmoth tele neck with a "Dark" ebony board (I assume that was their way of saying it had no streaks). It's completely black. It was an expensive neck for me (about $400ish). I can't imagine where Fender thinks they hid the extra $200-worth in their neck.

 

Not sure how I ended up replying to my own quote. Disregard.

 

Quoting yourself? Soooo gauche!

 

Yeah, not sure how that happened. Lol.

 

The black color is actually the result of age and decay, just like the spider web figure that is prized in Brazilian Rosewood. Guitar players, especially vintage enthusiasts are about as ignorant as anybody. Gold clubs used to use persimmon for the wood heads, and persimmon is a genuine ebony. It doesn't turn black until the tree is over 80 years old and starts to get black mineral streaks. The manufacturers didn't like this, so they just harvested the lumber before it began to rot.

 

There's plenty of rosewood grown on plantations, and there's plenty of other 'exoctic' woods that could be used. It's the idiots that pay money for garbage like 'relic' treatment that show just how stupid consumers can be, and the IMF and the WTO are behind the pillaging of the world for the banksters. The virtue signal crowd screams 'boycott', but they're the imbeciles who refuse to throw out their TV and dump their cell phones or give their fake meat and starbucks. And there's really no reason for the straight grain. I like the wil figure much better.

 

I'd rather have a Richlite or similar synthetic fretboard than an ebony one with streaks.

Seems like they would sell more if they dyed it.

 

Macassar ebony is usually very streaked. Not much of it is solid black.

 

Another programmed slave. It's not a population issue. If you want to solve these problems, it's the banksters who cause them. But you're probably too ignorant and self absorbed to even turn off your TV and cell phone, and just blame everything on others, hence the idiocy you spew about 'control the population'.

 

Dalbergia nigra was decimated when the Japanese started logging with helicopters to move the lumber out. Grows mostly in Ceara, where kingwood also grows. Most of the mystique of D. nigra is just ignorance. Plenty of better woods, but guitar players tend to be extremely ignorant.

 

Most people think that their understanding is complete, and if they aren't aware of something, it must be false. All this talk about ebony, and nobody has mentioned that the word originally was used to refer to Dalbergia melanoxylon, variously called Mpingo, African Blackwood and Granadilla, among other names. One of those common names was Mozambique ebony, and the African wooden statues often seen are wood that has defects that make it unsuitable for other uses. And the Japanese imitated ebony with the black dyed maple, even though there are numerous ebonies in Japan and Asia.

 

Marketing. And there are several rosewoods that are harder and denser than a lot of ebonies. Many of them are about as black as any ebony you'll find. Hard to believe so many people who know so little about wood think they know so much. No wonder the prices get so outrageous.

 

The rosewood and teak plantations in Indonesia have been producing commercially since at least the 80s.