Madagascar rosewood

[Paul Hostetter]

Apple is a lot like hard maple, and it'd work, though it's hard to source on a production level. If you can live with light color, Diospyros virginiana or persimmon, a common native, is ebony, just as hard as the best of them, but only pale gray. I've used Cercocarpus spp., AKA mountain mahogany, as well as manzanita, and both work really well and turn a nice creamy brown.

[j. condino]

Leo Fender proved long ago that you can make a great career using hard maple for fingerboards.

What about the 'American ebony", Persimmon. Has anyone here used it successfully in place of the traditional ebony fingerboards, headplate overlays, and fittings? The heartwood is very dark and dense. If anyone knows where I might find some to try, send me a pm. I think that you could have very good success using a number of southwestern regional "desert ironwoods". I had a student about 10 years ago make a beautiful light purple fingerboard out of lilac that smelled fantastic.

j.
www.condino.com

[Joe Mendel]

Paul, I admire your good intentions and firmly believe that we need to be good stewards of the resources we have been given. Being that human nature hasn't changed since Adam & Eve, how do we get customers to accept "non-traditional" woods? Some of the woods I've built with (granadillo, for one) & love aren't readily accepted. My supplier, Hibdon Hardwoods, isn't going to buy anymore, apparently, because I'm one of the few who were willing to buy it from them. Black walnut is my favorite wood, but many times I have to really sell it. Long ago people used local without giving it a thought, because that's what they could get. Mass marketing kind of cemented certain things in place and convincing folks that something else is just as good (albeit different) is very hard.
I don't mean to play devil's advocate, I really like building with wood that I can go pick out myself, from people that I know. I'd like to do more of it.

[Paul Hostetter]

There have been a lot of threads in the past about alternative woods, with a number of extremely successful ones highlighted in the process. Check the archives. I don't think we need to deviate from the original topic just yet. (I've sure done my bit in this department.)

[John Arnold]

I have been on a long search for suitable domestic fingerboard woods. I have used dogwood, osage orange, persimmon, pecan, and black locust. None are really dark enough for a traditional look, so I have dyed them with varying success.
Persimmon is mostly pale sapwood, but it is appealing because it is a true member of the ebony family.
Black locust and osage orange are similar to rosewood, in that both have low damping, high stiffness, and a porous structure.
Dogwood is appealing because it will wear very slick and smooth....almost shiny.
I think that apple would be similar to dogwood, though it is even more notorious than dogwood for excessive shrinkage and warping during seasoning.
I recently acquired some serviceberry that looks promising, but I haven't milled it yet.
Sourwood is another possibility. I cut some backs and sides that remind me of curly hard maple.
I have never tried the ironwoods from the eastern US, namely hornbeam and hop-hornbeam.
About a year ago, I discovered Texas ebony (AKA ebony blackbead), a legume that grows at the southern tip of Texas. It is a scraggly tree, with a lot of defects in the lumber. But it is usually possible to get a clear piece large enough for guitar fingerboards or bridges. The best pieces I have were salvaged after a hurricane.
Texas ebony is extremely hard, dense and close-grained. The heartwood is dark brown rather than black, but IMHO the 'ebony' moniker seems to fit better than any other domestic wood.
Another possibility is desert ironwood, but live trees are protected, and the pieces salvaged from dead trees usually have too many defects.

[tree]

My apologies for continuing to veer OT, but John's post is really interesting to me. I've suspected dogwood might be suitable for fingerboards - except for the pinkish color. I wonder how it did with the dye? Also, if the wood wears slick and shiny, maybe it could be utilized like Leo Fender did with hard maple and just build the whole neck/fingerboard out of it.

My father-in-law piddles around with various species of wood, whatever he can get his hands on. He swears that lilac wood is harder than iron.

[Gary McMoran]

I just completed a fingerboard and nut for a child's violin out of dogwood. Dogwood takes the black dye better than anything I've tried so far. Maple and other light colored woods seem to come out more blueish with the same dye, but the dogwood was a nice black color. I was pleasantly surprised.

[amowry]

I carved a lot of spoons out of lilac in my youth, and it's hard all right, but carves very nicely. I used to scrounge it near abandoned house sites, but it would be tricky to consistently find pieces big enough for fretboards. Apple is a great wood too, with the aforementioned caveats.

Great thread! One of the main reasons I build mandolins rather than guitars is that I can use mostly domestic wood, and I don't need much!