The future of ebony

I don't really care how my fingerboard looks as long as it doesn't effect the music I play on it.

I think blonde streaks on a black fingerboard would look amazing anyway. I'd prefer it over a completely black one.

I think that fellow is exaggerating a little bit, though.

If the world ran out of ebony, I think we'd just use rosewood or another substitute. I don't think the world would be sitting in their bedrooms looking at fingerboardless guitars, violins and basses saying 'Wish I had ebony on this so I could play it.'

 

I like my ebony with ivory....

 

This is a sad day for luthiers everywhere. From now on, folks purchasing instruments will note the imperfections (streaking) in the fingerboard/tailpiece/hatpegs and try to negotiate a lower price... I know I would.

 

Well, as a matter of fact most basses you can purchase today already have NOT pitch black ebony. Luthiers I know have not seen pitch black ebony for years.
What they do instad is in fact coloring the fretboard. After let my fretboard being reworked I had to stop the luthier to recolor the light brown stains and stripes. "Why are you doing so?" I inquired - L: "I have to so as the customers assoziate brown stains and stripes with poor quality and start discussing". He guys you make yourself being cheated!!
Personally I do not understand this - the problem is really you, the uninformed customer that thinks ebony must be black - the most do not know that there is even white ebony.

I love the look of my fingerboard - black in mellow light and in sunlight there is a brown shine on it.

This are good news for luthiers everywhere - perhaps it makes customers think and they can stop blacken fretboards...

 

If it's a fretted instrument, it doesn't even HAVE to be an ebony fretboard...I LIKE some nice grain there...if it's a lined fretless, same thing...but if it's a fretless with nothing but side dots, a jet black fingerboard just looks too cool...

 

Exactly.

This topic has been rambling around the guitar boards for the past month and many posters seem shocked. Dyeing fingerboards just isn't part of their their mental concept of their instrument.

If we were hearing, "I can't get the density of ebony I need," that would be a significant luthiery fact. Color comes from a bottle (and a gentleman never asks).

The broader point which people seem to want to overlook: If 80% of the "harvest" is left on the ground we're heading toward embargoes. That would stink for violin-family fingerboard. There truly is no natural equivalent.

 

No more ebony, that would suck. Although I have no problem with using jatoba (etc) for a fingerboard instead. I would miss it for other things though.

 

My bass is over 50 years old, original ebony fingerboard and has gray streaks throughout, and a blonde knot on one section at the edge. Doesn't bother me at all. Kinda lends character to the instrument.

 

Yeah... that's my leaning too. The quirks of wood, if used well, add to an instrument.
If people want black, it's the easiest colour to get... take any shade, even blonde maple and dye it enough you'll have a very dark grey... the grain 'would' give it away though.

 

The scary thing, is that there might not be ebony in 50 years. Makers then might do the most horrible thing possible...use ebonal!

But seriously new tone woods are mostlikely going to be used as more traditional ones are being used up. It might be good, might be bad. Kind of an off topic post but its important

 

...only her luthier knows for sure....

 

Any doublebass luthier will tell you that ebony fingerboards are not what they were 10, 5, even 3 years ago. They'll have to be impregnated with something dense and hard (and black) to give the kind of performance that we had 20+ years ago. I'm hoping that a process like this is developed sometime soon. It's gotten very difficult to get fingerboards that are at all acceptable.

 

All the good stuff was used up. The ebony that we get now is sustainably farmed and it is quite a bit less dense and is softer.

 

Well, that is not what I heard. A friend of mine is German luthier himself and he knows nothing about "impregnated with something dense and hard" - what should that be?
For the instruments he builds he is dyeing fingerboards if the customer wants to. For an classical orchestra blacker than black seems to be a must.
He has a nice German flatback built 1906 and guess what: brown stains and stripes in the ebony fingerboard...

 

30 yrs. ago i remember picking up from dulles airport,a small delegation of buisness men from Cameroon and Gabon. Their interest lay in purchasing and exporting logging machinery suitable for jungle work. they were earnest and did not leave empty handed...

sorry for everything!

 

No one finds this hypocritical? He makes instruments out of wood. If he was so worried about rain forest depletion, he could stop making guitars. Whether it's legal or not, you're still cutting down trees.

 

I noticed just playing on a bass from the 1800's, to my palatino, the actual feel to the wood, and how it feels pressing down on the string

 

The point is to try to devise a strategy for making the industry sustainable. If you are a major consumer of ebony and you make an honest step toward creating a more sustainable supply (such as purchasing streaked wood at higher prices, which is essentially all he says in the video), you are protecting your own butt as well as global wood supply. We could also all stop buying guitars/violins/etc, right?