Official Luthiers Forum!

What wood could be used for a fingerboard that is dark, as smooth and hard as ebony but lighter in weight? Guitars are head heavy anyway and when you put an ebony board on it that just adds to the weight.

I second Todd with the Macassar. It's my ebony of choice. Open backed tuners are a big help to restore balance.
Tom

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

No lighter weight woods I'm aware of that are comparably hard to ebony. Look for other ways to reduce weight. Lower density neck woods (Spanish cedar, Port Orford cedar, and butternut are the best I've found), optionally with carbon fiber bars added to stiffen them up if you like thin necks.

Use the lightest weight tuners you can find. Definitely no closed backs. I haven't done a slot head yet to verify, but that could probably also be made lighter weight than a typical paddle head with open back tuners. Gotoh Stealths are super light, but Burton LeGeyt had one fail on him so they're a bit questionable. PegHeds geared tuning pegs are about the same weight, and available in 16:1 ratio now. I like 4:1 even for steel strings though... feels similar to nylon strings on wood pegs. Speaking of which, if you're building nylon stringed instruments, wood pegs are much lighter than even PegHeds. Another advantage to peg style tuners is that you can thin the headstock more than you can with regular machines, and taper the thickness toward the end so you get even less material dangling out where it has the most leverage.

If you're building steel strings with an adjustable truss rod, that adds a ton of weight. I'm using a butternut neck with CF bars and PegHeds and adjustable truss rod on my harp guitar, and it's a fair bit heavier than I was hoping to get to. A one-way compression rod would be lighter, but not by that much. If you can afford it and have the tooling to route the channel, these carbon fiber D-tubes look excellent http://www.dragonplate.com/ecart/categories.asp?cID=130

And getting back to the original subject, how about using a double layer fingerboard, like 1/8" Spanish cedar, 1/8" ebony? With binding, nobody would ever know.

Padauk is the lightest weight wood I know of that's hard enough for fingerboards, but not that dark, and it will wear faster than ebony. The lightest weight near-black woods I know of are bois de rose and certain pieces of Brazilian rosewood. But both are in very short supply, and of course less hard than ebony.

I was thinking and didn't dare to reply, but now that it has been said once....old, tight, dark BRW, but if this answer helps you somehow

I too am a big fan of Macassar ebony, but it's about the same weight or heavier than Gabon or African ebony. Indian rosewood will save about 15% over those two, but won't wear as well.

Cocobolo is often pretty dark and polishes well.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I checked the weight and hardness of all the suggestions plus a few more and there seems to be nothing dark as hard and smooth as ebony that is lighter in weight. I guess weight is a factor of hardness. Ive been using Pao Ferro for my fingerboards because it looks like rosewood and is as smooth as maple but it is not as hard as ebony. Hardness is important to keep fingernails from scooping out the fingerboard but I dont know how hard a fingerboard actually needs to be. I have seen so many EI and maple boards scooped but they are pretty old. Still you dont want to be changing fingerboards every 10 years.

One might try keeping the fretting hand nails short..........!!!
Tom

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Oh, and a couple more things I just remembered to consider for balance... the position of the waist, and the neck length. 14 fret necks are longer than 12 fret necks, and thus the headstock (including those heavy tuners) has more leverage over the support point at the waist. A 12 fret neck with cutaway and low-profile heel gives you at least as much access as a 14 fret neck with chunky heel and/or no cutaway. 14 fret + low profile + cutaway is of course the best access-wise, though.

And then the waist. Most guitars have the tightest point below the soundhole center, which is a little low for my taste. Here's one of my more recent shapes, although I haven't actually built it up yet. 25" scale, 15" lower bout, 12 fret cutaway, waist about level with the soundhole center.


And my harp guitar, which is also 12 fret cutaway, with the waist above the soundhole center, about level with the 24th fret.

It will still be neck heavy, but that should help reduce the effect. I estimate the center of mass will be in the space between the neck and harp arm, a little south of the harp arm soundhole... but I won't know for sure until it's done.

And of course heavy sides and heavy tail block will add more weight to the body end of the equation, but my quest for balance is really a quest for light weight overall without making it too neck heavy, just because I like the feel of it. So I tend to do thin sides and small tail block, and try to minimize weight on the neck to match.

What about cutting a hole in between the tuner pegs for some weight reduction? After all thats essentially what is done with slotheads. If you dont like the look of that you could drill 3/4" holes in the headstock just short of going through and cover the holes with the overlay.