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Rosewood vs Pau Ferro

#21
As I've said before; I don't really care, one way or the other. My basses simply are what they are, and as long as they aren't structurally or electronically screwed up, I'm happy. AFAIC, what the maker uses for a fret board is completely irrelevant - as long as it holds the frets securely, and doesn't attack me with splinters. I have basses and guitars with all kinds of fret board wood - including a couple of Kramer lumies with Ebanol 'boards - and they all seem to sound and work just fine. Honestly; Life's too short to be obsessing over nit-noid stuff like this. Well, what's left of mine certainly is, anyway...:whistle:
 
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#22
Another insightful thread. Thanks, Turnaround. :)


Currently building a fretless with a maple board I plan to stain or paint to resemble ebony. This seems to be a low maintenance, cost effective alternative to ebony. Figuring in the relative cost of both woods, the finishing materials and labor involved, it isn't that much of a difference. Once completed, you don't have to worry about cracking and oiling maple. Often wondered why manufacturers haven't done more of this. If it doesn't work I'll have the answer.
 
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#23
I have had and do have Pau Ferro on numerous fretted and fretless basses over the years. I absolutely don't understand the distaste, either, as every piece I've had has been every bit as pretty as any rosewood I've had, and completely 100% functional and durable. The worst fretless board I've ever had in terms of durability was rosewood. It was a nice board, but it did not hold up well.
 
#24
I'll copy this post of mine from another thread:

Yes, pau ferro (aka Morado) has been around on instruments since the 1960's. It's relatively cheap and plentiful, but it's been shunned by consumers as being not as pretty as rosewood. Its mechanical properties are great. Hardness, weight and machinability are all about halfway between Indian rosewood and ebony. It's an excellent fingerboard wood.

One bad property is that, freshly cut, the sawdust has resin in it that many people are allergic to. Big companies, notably Fender, stopped using it because their employees kept getting nasty rashes. I myself stopped using pau ferro about fifteen years ago, because of the rashes. There's no real allergy problem to the customers, once the fingerboard has been fully sanded and sealed up. It's only the poor schmucks doing the sawing and the sanding.

What's changed now is the emergence of the roasting process. Roasted premium-grade woods have now become popular, particularly figured maples. Many smaller wood mills are now offering the process, and experimenting with roasting other woods.

Roasting pau ferro gets rid of the whole allergy/rash problem, plus it makes it a little bit lighter weight and darker brown in color. It's a wonderful fingerboard wood. Mike Lipe and I have been using roasted pau ferro on many of his necks for several years, and we love it. I guess we've done about a hundred necks with it so far.

I suspect that over the coming years, roasted pau ferro will become the dominant fingerboard wood on US made instruments.
 
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#26
Here's what the roasting process does. These are a few cutoffs from fingerboard blanks.

The top two are unroasted pau ferro. A lighter piece and a darker piece. They vary in color. This is bare wood without any oil/sealer finish. It's a medium tan-brown with orange-tan stripes. Putting on the sealer will darken it and increase the contrast.

The bottom two are roasted pau ferro, without any sealer. The roasting darkens it and turns the orange more reddish. The roasting seems to completely remove the resin which causes the allergy problems. I haven't had any rash problems working with it. It also lightens it maybe 10% and makes it a little softer and more brittle. Its hardness is higher than rosewood, but less than ebony.

It's a very nice combination of color and properties. It's our favorite fingerboard wood on Mike's guitars these days. He also uses some cocobolo and occasional ebony and figured maple.

IMG_6170B.jpg
 
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#27
But, but, but... Rosewood's hard to get now so it must be better than whatever's readily available, right? ;)

Seriously though, every guitar, bass and ukulele I own with a rosewood fretboard looks different from all the others, and many of the cheaper and/or newer ones were clearly dyed to make them darker. I can tell because when I oil them some of the black color rubs off on the rag.

I also have a Mustang with Pau Ferro and it does have a slightly reddish tint, but its not lighter than a lot of my undyed rosewood boards. In any case its a nice looking piece of wood and that's more important to me than what species it is.
 
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#30
Turnaround said:
I've heard and seen quite a few discussions about how manufacturers are using Pau Ferro now in place of Rosewood because of CITES regulations. And there seems to be a significant negative reaction to the use of Pau Ferro. I'd like to understand better what it is about Pau Ferro that some find objectionable. Most of the objection I have heard centres around the appearance of Pau Ferro - how it doesn't look as good as Rosewood.

The problem is that there are so many variations on Rosewood, it's hard to make a comparison. And since manufacturers have been dying their Rosewood fretboards dark for years, it becomes an almost meaningless discussion.

However, I decided to put up photos of some Pau Ferro, Indian Rosewood and Brazilian Rosewood for comparison and discussion. So here they are. Care to guess which is which?

View attachment 3197282
Click to expand...

My problem with pao ferro is that on a vast majority of guitars it looks literally like dried poop.
 
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#31
Turnaround said:
I've heard and seen quite a few discussions about how manufacturers are using Pau Ferro now in place of Rosewood because of CITES regulations. And there seems to be a significant negative reaction to the use of Pau Ferro. I'd like to understand better what it is about Pau Ferro that some find objectionable. Most of the objection I have heard centres around the appearance of Pau Ferro - how it doesn't look as good as Rosewood.

The problem is that there are so many variations on Rosewood, it's hard to make a comparison. And since manufacturers have been dying their Rosewood fretboards dark for years, it becomes an almost meaningless discussion.

However, I decided to put up photos of some Pau Ferro, Indian Rosewood and Brazilian Rosewood for comparison and discussion. So here they are. Care to guess which is which?

View attachment 3197282
Click to expand...
I would guess:
1) Pau fero
2) Indian Rosewood
3) Brazilian Rosewood

My preference by looks
3>>2>1
 
#33
Turnaround said:
I won't keep everyone guessing. From top to bottom they are Pau Ferro, Indian Rosewood and Brazilian Rosewood.

There really is very little to distinguish visually Pau Ferro from Indian Rosewood or Brazilian Rosewood. You can find light and dark, rich and pasty, warm and cool examples of each. But I can say that much of the Indian Rosewood I have seen over the last ten to fifteen years has been of inferior quality and has often been stained or dyed to improve its appearance. These days a lot of ebony is also being dyed since it is increasingly greyish with lighter streaks that appeals less to the masses.

In terms of it's durability, Pau Ferro is significantly better than most of the Rosewood I have seen for years. That's probably because it is still possible to get quality Pau Ferro boards, much easier than comparable quality Rosewood. But beware - high quality woods are becoming harder and harder to get and are commanding higher prices.
Click to expand...

I've got nothing against Pau Ferro. Some looks pretty and some not, like any wood. I do prefer Brazilian Rosewood, the Brazilian on my '64 P-basses is pretty dark by comparison to the sample above:

11048627_10205804220849874_6229049610512306838_o.jpg?_nc_cat=104&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-1.jpg

12028776_10207256224709063_3712330437111137306_o.jpg?_nc_cat=102&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-1.jpg
 
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#35
Turnaround said:
I won't keep everyone guessing. From top to bottom they are Pau Ferro, Indian Rosewood and Brazilian Rosewood.

There really is very little to distinguish visually Pau Ferro from Indian Rosewood or Brazilian Rosewood. You can find light and dark, rich and pasty, warm and cool examples of each. But I can say that much of the Indian Rosewood I have seen over the last ten to fifteen years has been of inferior quality and has often been stained or dyed to improve its appearance. These days a lot of ebony is also being dyed since it is increasingly greyish with lighter streaks that appeals less to the masses.

In terms of it's durability, Pau Ferro is significantly better than most of the Rosewood I have seen for years. That's probably because it is still possible to get quality Pau Ferro boards, much easier than comparable quality Rosewood. But beware - high quality woods are becoming harder and harder to get and are commanding higher prices.
Click to expand...
I would say the grain of Pau Ferro seems straighter but, as to colour, you could finish it as light or dark as you want.
 
#36
Mastermold said:
I've got nothing against Pau Ferro. Some looks pretty and some not, like any wood. I do prefer Brazilian Rosewood, the Brazilian on my '64 P-basses is pretty dark by comparison to the sample above:

View attachment 3197645
View attachment 3197646
Click to expand...
I think all wood darkens with age. Not that the wood of today isn't lighter. Maybe we need a thread about climate change ruining the quality of instrument wood.
 

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