Maple Fingerboard Love!

[luciens]

View attachment 3871103

Me too. So I finally built this Warmoth. Wilde P/J pickups. GHS Tapewounds.

Excuse the fingerprints-only complaint with gloss black

I got to play a Fender P with an unlined maple board on it a few years ago, when I was visiting Manhattan. The Sam Ash downtown had one and so I got to play with it for a bit.

What I've heard is, with maple, the wood really is too soft to work as a fingerboard wood without a hard finish over it. Maybe with flats it can kind of stand up, but it gets stained and dug up and starts to look terrible after a while. This is just something I hear many years ago, don't know if it's true.

But which the older Fenders had and every other maple fingerboard I've seen has. The one in Sam Ash had what looked like a poly finish on it and it sounded really nice.

But I'm thinking maybe that's why its not so common on fretless. Because it looks totally awesome...

L

 

[Brad_Pearson]

Got a couple of my own builds to show off and a new one in progress that Im working on. Really love maple and I'm slowly figuring out out to finish it best.

 

[Eli Brockway]

What I've heard is, with maple, the wood really is too soft to work as a fingerboard wood without a hard finish over it.

Depends on the type of maple; some are harder than others. I dislike rosewood because of its feel and how soft it is (compared to ebony, anyways, because I will agree that most rosewood species are harder than maple—still don't like the feel though); all the maple boards I play on are hard maple, not western or red leaf maple, which are much softer woods.

EDIT: Realized that I got too busy talking about relative feel that I forgot the point I was going to make. I've played fretless maple boards without a coating over them (as an experiment), and rosewood ones without a coating over them, and boards with the same coating over them. Ultimately the maple and rosewood wore pretty equally under flats, didn't bother with rounds; they felt the same with the same coating, and there it was just looks that decided which one won. YMMV of course.

 

[luciens]

Depends on the type of maple; some are harder than others. I dislike rosewood because of its feel and how soft it is; all the maple boards I play on are hard maple, not western or red leaf maple, which are much softer woods.

Interesting. I'd be tempted to try unfinished hard rock maple, except it would probably start to look really nasty in short order, with wear from the strings. Which would negate the reason for unlined maple to begin with lol.

As for rosewood, I've owned a couple of rosewood fretlesses and I agree it's pretty soft for FL, but I really liked the tone. Almost completely muaah-less and closer to a fretted tone, which is my preference. But I don't have them anymore, and didn't play them long enough to see if they tore up over time.

Ebony is super durable and has a little more muaah, but not enough that it's objectionable...

L

 

[Eli Brockway]

Interesting. I'd be tempted to try unfinished hard rock maple, except it would probably start to look really nasty in short order, with wear from the strings. Which would negate the reason for unlined maple to begin with lol.

As for rosewood, I've owned a couple of rosewood fretlesses and I agree it's pretty soft for FL, but I really liked the tone. Almost completely muaah-less and closer to a fretted tone, which is my preference. But I don't have them anymore, and didn't play them long enough to see if they tore up over time.

Ebony is super durable and has a little more muaah, but not enough that it's objectionable...

L

It starts to look nasty sooner, for sure, but it and rosewood hold up about the same under general playing wear without anything covering them. Ebony will definitely always be my preference for fretless, though, and maple for fretted. I dislike both the feeling and look of rosewood on anything except my classical guitar.

 

[BigBear77]

 

[fourstringburn]

 

[ab2112]

Currently looking for a home as well, so I can upload some more Maple love.

 

[oldandbold]

My maple necked honey.

 

[Manticore]

An interesting acquisition I no longer own.

 

[jbhaugh]

Bought my (I think) 2nd ever maple-board bass today. 1984 Ibanez Roadstar II. The only other one I have had that I can recall was a StingRay 5.

 

[klyph]

Beautiful bass! What is that?

THAT is a Maruszczyk Elwood L5-A custom. I actually am not a big fan of fancy looking natural finish Basses. I would rather have a cool paint job. But... I didn’t buy that bass for it’s looks. It weighs 8 pounds, and those Delano Times Squared pickups are incredible sounding. I would have bought it no matter what it looked like. That said, it’s natural beauty has grown on me, and the nice comments when I take it out of the bag don’t hurt.
I was told that it was a NAMM show bass. I went to try another bass at a local retailer who is a Maruszczyk dealer. I didn’t like it, and asked if they had any lightweight 5’s. They took a couple down, including this one. It had a 3k price tag, which was not in my budget. I was prepared to spend 2k or less. So, I tried the others first, and none of them really did it for me. At least not enough to buy that day. Some of the other Basses that I tried were also expensive, beautiful axes (mayones, warrior) so I said “what the hell” and picked it up. I think I played it about 20 seconds before my jaw slackened, my eyes rolled back and I let out a string of expletives. The sales clerk asked me if everything was ok. I said “everything is fine...but I may have to buy this bass!”. We laughed and laughed... I had to go home and think about it for a month. I have been gigging for 35 years, and never spent more than a grand on an axe. They were nice enough to take a couple of Basses in trade towards it, which got me close enough. If they had sold it, I probably would have spec’ed a custom order with those pickups (450$ a set!) in white or black. The fretboard is bird’s eye, here is the back of the neck:

The top is padouk, the back is black korina. It’s a big bodied lightweight monster.

 

[klyph]

Another shot of the top

 

[jmlee]

I got to play a Fender P with an unlined maple board on it a few years ago, when I was visiting Manhattan. The Sam Ash downtown had one and so I got to play with it for a bit.

What I've heard is, with maple, the wood really is too soft to work as a fingerboard wood without a hard finish over it. Maybe with flats it can kind of stand up, but it gets stained and dug up and starts to look terrible after a while. This is just something I hear many years ago, don't know if it's true.

But which the older Fenders had and every other maple fingerboard I've seen has. The one in Sam Ash had what looked like a poly finish on it and it sounded really nice.

But I'm thinking maybe that's why its not so common on fretless. Because it looks totally awesome...

L

A while back I saw a buddy’s fretless maple P from the 60’s. Rounds on it and had been played steadily like that over the years. Very subtle grooving of the fretboard and no discolouration.

 

[Troutman]

yea, I recorded this with a maple finger board

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[voodoobassist]

Only thing better than maple? FLAME maple!

 

[ExaltBass]

 

[TN WOODMAN]

I got to play a Fender P with an unlined maple board on it a few years ago, when I was visiting Manhattan. The Sam Ash downtown had one and so I got to play with it for a bit.

What I've heard is, with maple, the wood really is too soft to work as a fingerboard wood without a hard finish over it. Maybe with flats it can kind of stand up, but it gets stained and dug up and starts to look terrible after a while. This is just something I hear many years ago, don't know if it's true.

But which the older Fenders had and every other maple fingerboard I've seen has. The one in Sam Ash had what looked like a poly finish on it and it sounded really nice.

But I'm thinking maybe that's why its not so common on fretless. Because it looks totally awesome...

L

No way to know for sure but the bass you played at Sam Ash is possibly the one that Brian had at Low End Bass Shop a few years back. . It was a 77 or 78 , like my build except p pickup only. I lusted after that bass for months . My wife finally says just go get it. Went to the shop-don’t tell me you sold my bass. Yep. It’s headed to New York Sam Ash store. They bought it from him at a guitar show .

I wanted that exact spec bass after seeing Stanley Sheldon playing one with Peter Frampton in 76. This one was super heavy and the only thing holding me back. Gave up on finding another hopefully lighter one , so went the Warmoth route. This thing whispers or screams with these pickups . I have another Warmoth build (‘56) with the same neck but fretted and am sold on Warmoth.

You are correct in that a maple fretboard or fingerboard needs a good protective coating or they can take on a gray raw wood appearance like you see on older worn in Fenders. That can be cool too though. I have this Fretless and 3 others with rosewood fingerboards and use tapes on 2 of the others and GHS Precision Flats on the last one. (I have rounds on a few fretted basses but on none of my Fretless. )

 

[overit]

Birds the word...

 

[fretno]