• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Double Bass Snakewood for a fingerboard/tailpiece?

#3
In my experience snakewood isn't a great tonewood. It's too heavy and ends up sounding dull. For my ears I like african blackwood better than ebony (too glassy), but ebony better than most other rosewoods. Heavy isn't always better, especially in the case of the oilier woods like lignum vitae. They end up choking the sound. Stiffness is what we need, and the rosewoods especially African Blackwood excel at this.
 
#4
While snakewood could be used for the fingerboard and tailpiece, the main consideration would be that a board large enough to make those would wind up costing more than a nice carved bass. It is VERY expensive and generally only comes in small sizes.

Vegasman, that is a confusing post. You like African Blackwood better than ebony and ebony better than most other rosewoods, but then the rosewoods and African blackwood, Dalbergia Melanoxylon, which is actually a true rosewood, are better....:hmm: African Blackwood is also a nightmare to use because of the high oil content. It will gum up any of the power sanding tools in the first pass- thickness sander, spindles, discs- worse than Brazilian Rosewood. I figure about $50 extra worth of sandpaper just for a little mandolin build.

I know a number of builders, myself included, who have developed allergic sensitivities from using African Blackwood over the years and can no longer use it. I've always wanted to try it for a bass fingerboard and tailpiece but had visons of poison ivy / oak like reactions every time I played the bass.

j.
www.condino.com
 
#5
I like Melanoxylon better than most other rosewoods I've tried, I find it to be a superior rosewood, sorry for the confusion. I've found the oil content to be low in the pieces I've used, or at least manageable. Was actually far easier to work on the lathe for my endpins than all other rosewoods. Maybe I just got good pieces?
I also don't seem to have much aversion to woods, yet, especially cocobolo which I hear is one of the worst.
Ebony, on the other hand, is the devil's nose candy. That mess gets everywhere! But based off my (very limited) experience it makes a better more stable fingerboard material that the (non melanoxylon) rosewoods.
 
#9
We use snakewood on both fretted and fretless electric basses (my personal bass has a snakewood fingerboard), however, we've found that it does not work well for EUB fingerboards due to the radius of the neck and issues with cracking. As far as sound goes - its tone is spectacular, with sustain like nothing else we've heard. Steve Bailey wouldn't use anything else after being turned on to snakewood for his electric fretless signature model. Thanks!
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back