I love the tone and feel of a nice piece of Pau Ferro.
This is a nice piece on my Roscoe Beck.
This is a nice piece on my Roscoe Beck.
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Rosewood vs Pau Ferro
- Thread starter Turnaround
- Start date
Indeed they have. This is my early 90's StingRay. Almost 2 years on from being PLEKked it's taken on a beautiful sheen and has deepened in colour.
I don't understand why guitar makers don't just dye the wood to look darker. With some Fiebing's chocolate leather dye to a walnut fretboard on a musikraft neck. It looks dark and so so smooth! In my opinion, of course.
Pao Ferro used to be an "premium" wood. some people just want something to complain about.
During the cites ban garbage I picked up a beautiful Gibson 6 string with granddildo or some other variation of rosewood. still plays like a guitar.
During the cites ban garbage I picked up a beautiful Gibson 6 string with granddildo or some other variation of rosewood. still plays like a guitar.
I've seen a fair amount of pau on fender basses since the CITES change in rosewood, and nothing I've seen has looked that good or felt nice. I mean obviously I can't tell what the fingerboard on your bass feels like but it's a beautiful cut and it looks nice. Everything I've seen has just looked like hard dry kindling. It's frankly just felt weird under my fingers and hasn't looked good to me though I'm certainly open to being wrong. I preferred the look of roasted maple.
I've liked PF every since I had it on a 90s Fernandes Strat. At the time it would have been a selling point rather than a compromise. PF looks particularly good with gold or copper finishes. I'm fine with maple and rosewood too. I've never owned a guitar or bass with an ebony board, but the ones I've tried seemed smooth.
But for sleek dark luxury, you can't beat Composites like the Ebanol I had on an aluminum-neck Kramer. If I were doing a build, I'd want to at least consider Ebanol, Richlite, etc.
I'd like to point out that Rosewood is an oilier wood than PF, and a little bit of oil will help a PF board shape up nicely. Those dry looking pieces of PF on lower end guitars often are kinda dry.
But for sleek dark luxury, you can't beat Composites like the Ebanol I had on an aluminum-neck Kramer. If I were doing a build, I'd want to at least consider Ebanol, Richlite, etc.
I'd like to point out that Rosewood is an oilier wood than PF, and a little bit of oil will help a PF board shape up nicely. Those dry looking pieces of PF on lower end guitars often are kinda dry.
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The piece of Pau Ferro wood you posted an image of in the OP looks absolutely astonishing beautiful, much better than the images of the rosewood you posted, though I would still prefer really dark, almost black, piece of rosewood for my fretboards.
But if all Pau Ferro fretboards looked like that image I wouldn't complain, they never does though, most of them got the color of very light brown dried out diarrhea, and are very uniform and boring without any interesting patterns or markings like the image you posted.
I guess your point then would be that it's not Pau Ferro that is to blame for those fretboards looking hideously ugly, the image in your OP proves that, but the manufactures that chose the specific pieces of wood they are made of, cause obviously they could have looked really good, even astonishing beautiful, unfortunately as it is they look the exact opposite in by far most cases, I am looking at you Fender.
But if all Pau Ferro fretboards looked like that image I wouldn't complain, they never does though, most of them got the color of very light brown dried out diarrhea, and are very uniform and boring without any interesting patterns or markings like the image you posted.
I guess your point then would be that it's not Pau Ferro that is to blame for those fretboards looking hideously ugly, the image in your OP proves that, but the manufactures that chose the specific pieces of wood they are made of, cause obviously they could have looked really good, even astonishing beautiful, unfortunately as it is they look the exact opposite in by far most cases, I am looking at you Fender.
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I agree with this. Even if it's possible to find very similar looking rosewood and pau ferro the difference is usually a lot more pronounced in the real world. At least on mass manufactured instruments like Fenders. Most pau ferro fingerboards I come across are a lot lighter/duller and not nearly as nice as the one in the OP. And when I want rosewood I want DARK rosewood. Much darker than the one in the OP.
Let me put it this way: If I got a pau ferro board like that one I would be very, very happy. But if I got a rosewood board like those two I would be slightly disappointed because I like my rosewood boards to be darker.
All three look nice though. If you like your rosewood on the light side it's certainly possible to find very similar looking pau ferro. But maybe not on a random off the shelf MIM Fender.
This is just about LOOKS of course. If we bring sound/feel into it... it would be 50/50 for me. I like both.
