And blah blah blah makes for a fine fingerboard material!
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Please explain how my personal experiences influences the way I think and choose to spend my own money on things for my own personal enjoyment is considered baseless.
say that.
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In another thread, someone informed me that Ishibashi is no longer willing/able to sell instruments that contain rosewood internationally. Invalid Link Removed
Warmoth doesn't either. I played around with their neck configurator last week, no international shipping for any rosewood.
Pau Ferro is a wood of many names, and is sometimes called Morado: and because the wood is so similar in appearance and working properties to rosewood, it is also sometimes referred to as Bolivian or Santos Rosewood. The wood has been used in various capacities as a substitute for the endangered Brazilian Rosewood. Although the wood is not technically in the Dalbergia genus, it’s in a closely-related genus (Machaerium), and contains the same sensitizing compounds found in rosewoods—about as close to a true rosewood as a wood can get without actually being a Dalbergia species.
From: The Wood database
From: The Wood database
Then you haven't read the whole thread. And I'd rather be accurate than summarily dismiss the opinion of someone just because you disagree with it.One, but who's counting. I mean, we know you aren't.
Why would it? One is able to buy and sell rosewood products without limit as long as that product stays in within the country. If it is to be sold internationally, then a permit is required which costs money. Basically the whole reason CITES exists in the first place.
They (CITIES) need to seriously revisit their decision to put ALL species of dalbergia (rosewood) on the endangered list regardless of whether they are endangered or not.
Saturday morning tonewood rambling started. I think this applies to rosewood, ebony or any other hard to find wood and how cosmetics and sound quality interact and affect it's use as a tonewood. If not, hopefully it's at least interesting!
As far as spruce goes, I'm a luthier who also cuts Adirondack Spruce trees, which long ago was the only species of spruce used by the big acoustic builders like Martin and Gibson. They stopped using red spruce some time during the 1940s because there were not enough good trees left. So they switched to Sitka. Sitka was great because the trees were abundant, huge, old and it was very easy to find trees with near perfect, straight, even, 18+ grain per inch.
Sweet Parlor!
Just wait until someone tries to explain that to the customs agent at the Canadian border! Which is why I said earlier, putting Indian Rosewood, when much of it is plantation grown, on the CITIES list doesn't make sense. US teenagers have bagpipes seized at Canada border after competition
And yes, that is a sweet parlor isn't it. Hans was an excellent mandolin builder also, but like me he quit making them.
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I don't remember saying that the pau ferro fretboards are cheap. I clearly remember saying that light fretboards remind me of poor workmanship from the Epiphone & lower priced Gibsons I tried out.
I'm starting to feel like a certain leader of the free world because all my words are being taken out of context and used against me.
Was about to state the same. As far as i remember most of their top line signature basses late 90s were made with Pao Ferro ( RBV, STUHamm URge I. Deluxe Vs etc etc) so to my record Cheap is not the word that comes to my mind when speaking about Pao Ferro
Actually i played once a STuHamm Urge I Pao ferro, and to me was one of the nicest color/feeling fretboard. I wish my Fender RBIV would have come with Pao Ferro... instead of Rosewood
Well, as with everything, it all comes down to personal preference. I have had a couple Pau Ferro boarded basses, as well as a Sadowsky Metro with Morado. Absolutely nothing wrong with them.
However... Strictly my personal preference, but I much prefer the APPEARANCE of a dark rosewood over the lighter Pau Ferro or Morado. IMO, the darker rosewood gives a more aesthetically appealing, and dare I say "richer" appearance.So there is no right or wrong in this case. Only opinions, which almost always clash.
C'mon Jeff, this is talkbass, and you're talking sensibly.
Besides, you like maple! 
My 1996 Jazz deluxe has PF and it's one of the few basses on which people comment on the fretboard. I think this transition will be much more of a non-event than is being speculated.
We are such creatures of habit and bias. Here in N. America we have a fantastic and versatile tonewood, maple, that literally grows like weeds. Makes a great fingerboard, but , it's not brown. So we must have a species from 1000's of miles away, to use on solidbody instruments no less.
Think I'm going to cut to the chase and get a graphite neck.
The main thing I don't like about maple boards, and I have two of them, is that the high gloss finish on them feels a little sticky or grabby under my fretting hand. No doubt I'd get used to it if it was all that's available. The roasted maple sounds very promising as I understand that it doesn't require a finish on top. If it can also accept stains or dyes then you could end up with something visually and physically similarly feeling to ebony or dark rosewood.
I've got a parts jazz bass with an MIM deluxe neck with a pau ferro board and it looks fine to me.
