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Steinberger Club

#1,841
jglunt said:
I had understood that the more recent Gibson Steinbergers--the Synapses and Spirits--were all made at the Epiphone plants in either China or Korea. That'll teach me to believe everything that Uncle Sal says! :cool:
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Here are a couple of pics of the neck of my XT-2DB, purchased this past year after a four month wait, which Thomann now lists as no longer available-

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If it is real wood that has been stained black, perhaps it did fool my luthier friend- after all he is of the mind not to pay too close attention to a 400 dollar guitar versus a high priced one such as this 1961 (I believe) ES 175 that came with PAF pickups (seen in the pic below)-

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#1,842
I believe if we got an alphabetical list of "Hardwoods of the World" we could probably find each of those listed as the fretboard wood of the Steinberger XT basses somewhere on the internet. I feel certain that when Gibson started making the Spirits again back in maybe 2016, 2017, somewhere in there, and they made that new website about "losing your head again" with Ned peeking out around a bass he was holding, that somewhere on that website, it listed the specs of the instruments, and the fretboard material was listed as man-made. But I can't find it on there now. But it matters not. I was just trying to explain the hairline cracks in my fretboard to my friend, and he asked what the fretboard was made of.
 
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#1,843
jglunt said:
I believe if we got an alphabetical list of "Hardwoods of the World" we could probably find each of those listed as the fretboard wood of the Steinberger XT basses somewhere on the internet. I feel certain that when Gibson started making the Spirits again back in maybe 2016, 2017, somewhere in there, and they made that new website about "losing your head again" with Ned peeking out around a bass he was holding, that somewhere on that website, it listed the specs of the instruments, and the fretboard material was listed as man-made. But I can't find it on there now. But it matters not. I was just trying to explain the hairline cracks in my fretboard to my friend, and he asked what the fretboard was made of.
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It wouldn't surprise me, but as you said, "Who knows?" I can't think of an example now, but it seems like I've heard of some unusual wood choices that have occurred in various makes of basses over time, due to making ends meet with supplies at hand-
 
#1,844
ectoflanger said:
It wouldn't surprise me, but as you said, "Who knows?" I can't think of an example now, but it seems like I've heard of some unusual wood choices that have occurred in various makes of basses over time, due to making ends meet with supplies at hand-
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And with some hardwoods now being illegal to import or harvest these days, look at all the unusual fretboard woods cropping up. I think one of my Indonesian G&L Tributes has a Brazilian Cherrywood fretboard. I don't remember that 25 years ago.
 
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#1,845
jglunt said:
And with some hardwoods now being illegal to import or harvest these days, look at all the unusual fretboard woods cropping up. I think one of my Indonesian G&L Tributes has a Brazilian Cherrywood fretboard. I don't remember that 25 years ago.
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I just recalled that my friend's line of guitars- Sargent Guitars - had mesquite wood for the fretboard material, partially as a tribute to their being made in Texas-
 
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#1,847
jglunt said:
He can come out here to the desert and cut as much of that as he wants. It's like a weed out here and full of thorns. He'd be welcome to all he could haul off.
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It grew in my front and back yard, as well as the neighbors in the new subdivision we moved in to in Farmer's Branch, Texas when I was a kid. I remember stepping on a big thorn from a fallen branch when I was 8. Also the the back field of our farm, which was about 40 miles south of the DFW area, was chock full of it. One thing about it, once we got rid of those in the back field, they never tried to come back like some other noxious plant life. Oddly that was the only place I saw it in the rural area where our farm was.
 
#1,848
The mesquite thickets are so thick here in the Chihuahuan Desert of southeast Arizona that you couldn't get through them without losing most of your skin. Those are mean bushes. I've never heard of any use for them other than smoking meat and now as fretboard material.
 
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#1,849
jglunt said:
The mesquite thickets are so thick here in the Chihuahuan Desert of southeast Arizona that you couldn't get through them without losing most of your skin. Those are mean bushes. I've never heard of any use for them other than smoking meat and now as fretboard material.
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Down in South Texas in the Brownsville area there are huge thickets of acacia trees which are pretty thorny-
 
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#1,852
It depends on where you're at. Here in this desert, it's dry, but the dry air allows dust to just hang in the air. I moved here about seven years ago from the Albuquerque area. I'm right along I-10 just about 12 miles from New Mexico. It gets pretty cool here in the winter, and summers are hot and dry...lots of days with 6% - 7% humidity. The farther west along I-10 you go, the warmer it gets, generally speaking.
 
#1,855
They may have degraded from the original XL series in a number of ways, but at least they maintained 'Deluxe' gig bag integrity- lol!!

I eventually found a reasonable but expensive alternative by Warwick- expensive only because of the shipping charges I had to pay Thomann to send it to the United States since there is no US vendor-

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There is however a company that has made custom padded leather bags for XL basses, but they're really expensive (800 USD or so)- Glen Cronkite -

Glenn Cronkhite Home Page

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#1,858
New bass day in Oregon. After lusting for an XL2 for my entire life, I finally acquired one about a year ago here in the TB classifieds. My personal Holy Grail, however, has always been an unlined fretless XL2. In addition to their rarity, the current market prices have always made any that did come up on the market a no-go for me. Not any more…I bit the bullet and one arrived here yesterday to keep my fretted XL2 company. I’m beyond stoked!

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#1,859
Very nice! My first Steinberger-style was an unlined fretless Hohner 4-string. I still own it and love it. I played it as my #1 for years, and my brain has a lot of trouble with lined fretless now so I don't buy those anymore. As a teenager I trained myself on that fretless (it was my first) by playing along with songs in the dark.
 
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#1,860
Bergerman said:
New bass day in Oregon. After lusting for an XL2 for my entire life, I finally acquired one about a year ago here in the TB classifieds. My personal Holy Grail, however, has always been an unlined fretless XL2. In addition to their rarity, the current market prices have always made any that did come up on the market a no-go for me. Not any more…I bit the bullet and one arrived here yesterday to keep my fretted XL2 company. I’m beyond stoked!

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Congratulations!! What a lovely pair!
 
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