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Have you sucessfully darkened a pau ferro or laurel fingerboard?


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I have a couple of basses with 'almost rosewood' looking fingerboards: one pau ferro, and the other indian laurel, both are a fair bit lighter than the nice dark rosewood boards on other basses I have. I'd like to darken them to look a bit more like brazillian rosewood. Usually an application of lemon (or mineral) oil can improve the appearance of a pale/dry rosewood board, but this was not as sucessful on pau ferro or indian laurel when I tried it.

 

I've looked up info on this and found various conflicting instructions. It looks like the way to do this is to clean the board with naptha and apply a good coat of either wood dye, leather dye, or a mixure of lemon/mineral oil and either wood or leather dye. various products are mentioned, but there doesn't seem to be any concensus.

 

I've seen the montypresso wax, but on the videos I've seen, it doesn't really seem to work as well as I would want it to.

 

Who here has actually done this and can recommend any specific products and a method?

 

 

Edited by Jean-Luc Pickguard
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Simply use linseed oil instead of lemon oil, no need to clean the fingerboard first, just apply it, let it dry and wipe.

 

The smell is totally different of course.

 

I've done it on several very dry and pale fingerboards successfully, including my niece's acoustic guitar with a laurel fingerboard, but you won't go as dark as real Brazilian rosewood as it's quite close to ebony colour wise.

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I’ve given the Laurel fingerboard on my CV precision a light clean with wire wool and lemon oil a few times and this has definitely darkened the appearance. I found Laurel quite a dry wood with a fault fairly open grain but it’s definitely changed since the lemon oil. 
 

How many coats have you tried? It might just be a case of a few thinner coats?

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Here's my two classicvibe60s Mustangs, the one on the left has had the board darkened

I bought it on here used and I'm pretty sure it had already been darkened, it had been messed with a bit (sorry, upgraded 😉) - I admit the darker looking board was part of the reason I bought it, as was the lightness, but actually the green one is a better instrument imho and the mods I did to that make it sound even better.

I did a full 24 hour montys treatment and it did look even darker, such that you could see the contrast between the fingerboard surface and the edge under the neck lacquer but now a few months later that contrast is much less evident. The board is oiled but still has that dry texture that laurel can exhibit, but wood varies (and these are different years, different factories, cort for surf green earlier year and samick for the racing stripes version).

I am happy to send you the montys if you want to try it out, no point in spending £20+ on a tub to use just a few grams of it. I'm not sure I'll use it again and will eventually list it for sale

IMG_1030[1].JPG

IMG_1029[1].JPG

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