Ebony/Maple on the same fingerboard?

[arthurhenry]

Did anyone notice this bass in the Sam Ash ad on the back of last month's (March 19) Bass Player? The fingerboard appears to be Maple under the B string and Ebony under the other four strings. I can't find a similar one online - perhaps it was just a photographic/printing error.

Edited April 10, 2019 by arthurhenry

[oldslapper]

Looks like it’s unfinished 

[Cato]

I'm sure it's doable but I reckon it might feel a bit weird because maple boards pretty much always have a laquer or poly coating whereas ebony boards generally don't.

I'm not sure it would be possible to get a seemless transition between the two materials.

I'm leaning towards it being a photographic illusion/error of some sort although you'd think that images intended for advertising would be checked more carefull.

Edited April 10, 2019 by Cato

[Doctor J]

Looks like a photoshop trainwreck, although it could be a very linear grain anomaly with that piece of wood. They only offer maple or ebony, not a combination of both.

 

As an aside, am I the only one who finds their use of two round string trees plus the string guide on the B to be a complete eyesore, a very ugly solution to a simple problem? Surely a bar would be far easier on the eye while providing a uniform break angle over the nut? It reeks of a solution which developed in a scattergun fashion over a long period of time an no-one has thought of re-evaluating the situation.

 

 

[BigRedX]

17 hours ago, Cato said:

I'm sure it's doable but I reckon it might feel a bit weird because maple boards pretty much always have a laquer or poly coating whereas ebony boards generally don't.

I'm not sure it would be possible to get a seemless transition between the two materials.

I'm leaning towards it being a photographic illusion/error of some sort although you'd think that images intended for advertising would be checked more carefull.

I don't see what iy would be a problem getting the two woods to give a seamless transition. If it was you couldn't have an all ebony fingerboard on a maple neck either.

It's most likely a piece of ebony with a lighter grain section that has been used, although I wouldn't be using that particular instrument in a catalogue, since it is going to be unique.

[BigRedX]

4 hours ago, Doctor J said:

As an aside, am I the only one who finds their use of two round string trees plus the string guide on the B to be a complete eyesore, a very ugly solution to a simple problem? Surely a bar would be far easier on the eye while providing a uniform break angle over the nut? It reeks of a solution which developed in a scattergun fashion over a long period of time an no-one has thought of re-evaluating the situation.

It's a situation that has arisen from cost saving choices made back in the late 40s when the first Fender instruments were being designed. 

To have angled headstock required either a larger piece of wood for the neck blank or a joint between the neck and headstock, both of which went against Leo Fender's design ethos of making his instruments cost effectively and without requiring specialist luthier skills from his workers. 

In these days of CNC machining, when even the crappiest Chinese guitar factory is capable of making an angled headstock with a scarf joint that will be stronger than a single piece of wood, the cost and labour saving aspects of the non-angled headstock has been completely negated.

[AndyTravis]

Ebony can be quite streaky.

There’s an interesting yet tragic video interview with Bob Taylor explaining that people only want “black” ebony, so the lumberjacks would chop down 10,000s of trees and use only a third of the actual wood.

He states towards the end of the video that people are just going to have to accept that it will take years of regrowth and sustainable management to see a regular return of all black ebony.

He bought the mill and area of Forrest in Cameroon to start this process.

One of the first jobs was retrieving the felled logs which were left when deemed to be not black enough, 1000’s of full trees.

There are also 1000’s of 1m/2m stumps just left in the ground, he was also setting about digging those out.

I know Breedlove used to list “Brazilian Rosewood - Stumpwood” from rainforests where they chopped trees at 6ft, meaning thousands of tonnes of lumber was just sat unused and the ground space left unusable for new growth as the old roots prevented the new trees from spreading and growing.

Bloody humans.

[AndyTravis]

 

 

[Doctor J]

45 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

It's a situation that has arisen from cost saving choices made back in the late 40s when the first Fender instruments were being designed. 

To have angled headstock required either a larger piece of wood for the neck blank or a joint between the neck and headstock, both of which went against Leo Fender's design ethos of making his instruments cost effectively and without requiring specialist luthier skills from his workers. 

In these days of CNC machining, when even the crappiest Chinese guitar factory is capable of making an angled headstock with a scarf joint that will be stronger than a single piece of wood, the cost and labour saving aspects of the non-angled headstock has been completely negated.

Never under dispute and, be that as it may, there are still nicer options to address the straight-on headstock than that which they have gone with, which looks like a crude afterthought after a rummage through the scrap parts bin.

[BigRedX]

26 minutes ago, Doctor J said:

Never under dispute and, be that as it may, there are still nicer options to address the straight-on headstock than that which they have gone with, which looks like a crude afterthought after a rummage through the scrap parts bin.

I don't like non-angled headstock because IME anything that impedes the string path between and nut and the machine head post leads to tuning problems.

[bubinga5]

1 hour ago, AndyTravis said:

 

 

This should have been the attitude many many years ago..

[Grahambythesea]

It’s interesting as the Fender site only offers maple on the elite.

[Cato]

15 minutes ago, Grahambythesea said:

It’s interesting as the Fender site only offers maple on the elite.

The Fender website is infuriating to use.

They offer ebony but only with with certain colours.

https://shop.fender.com/en-GB/electric-basses/jazz-bass/american-elite-jazz-bass-v/0197101719.html

Unless you click through all the colour options you can't see what type of board it comes with.

The website does seem to say that the colour in the OP comes with a maple board though.

Edited for incorrect link.

Edited April 11, 2019 by Cato

[Woodinblack]

Looks like a photoshop to show you can have rosewood or maple.

Although you can get ebony that looks like that. Or many other woods.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Highly-figured-African-ebony-bass-guitar-fingerboard-QUARTERSAWN-GRADE-A/273380501804?hash=item3fa6bf692c:m:m8pz5DLK5LhTjI5ORLzZWNw