What the heck is this fingerboard wood??

Ibanez are using Jatoba on some of their cheapest instruments:

SR300EB | SR | ELECTRIC BASSES | PRODUCTS | Ibanez guitars

"fretboard

• Jatoba"

 

I have one bass that has a Jacaranda fretboard, it kinda looks like it could be Jacaranda (brazillian rosewood).

 

Great fretboard wood. Also found on not so cheap models !

 

Also called brazilian cherrywood.

 

I don't think either of those is jacaranda. AFAIK, its use was banned outright long ago so you find it on older instruments. And those are $$$$$.
Unless the marketing wonks have just renamed something else jacaranda, which wouldn't surprise me. There are a bunch of species in the jacaranda genus, so maybe it's one of those, but def not what has traditionally been called Jacaranda / Brazillian rosewood, which is quite dark.

 

Just to be clear - the name "Brazilian Rosewood" in instrument making almost always refers to Dalbergia Nigra, the striped chocolate-brown wood that is traditionally used for backs and sides of acoustic instruments, as well as fingerboards and bridges. This material is regulated under the CITES treaty as an endangered species, though it's still in use by a number of instrument companies.

"True" rosewoods all fall in the Dalbergia genus, and include Indian, Madagascar, Amazon, and Southeast Asian varieties, as well as African Blackwood.
There are also several "false" rosewoods, such as Pau Ferro (aka "Santos Rosewood", Bubinga (sometimes called "African Rosewood") and others.
These names arise because these less common woods have similar properties (density, for example) to better-known species.
Mexican Katalox, for example, is often called "Mexican Ebony" or even "Royal Ebony" despite being in a completely different family of tree.

This happens all the time with "mahogany" as well, which is used as a catchall generic term for all sorts of woods being harvested in Central and South America, Africa, Asia and the Phillipines.
"True" mahoganies are in the Swietenia genus, and all the others are "so-called" mahogany. (African/Khaya "mahogany", African sapele, Phillipine lauan, etc.)

OP's fingerboard could be Jatoba, Jacaranda or Bubinga - hard to tell from the photos. All are perfectly viable fretboard woods.
Please remember that much of what is traditional in instrument-making is somewhat accidental...using Alder for early Fender solidbodies, for example,
instead of poplar which would have been the more likely choice if Fender had been on the East coast.
Don't judge the material based on how commonly it's used - some of the best non-traditional species (wenge, for example, which rivals the best traditional woods) are
relatively recent to the instrument world.

Cheers,
Martin

 

^^ great post, thanks!

 

That fretboard looks clean

 

It is a Frankestein bass I had made by a friend of mine who is a Luthier, an SG body,with a Fender scale neck, and two mini-humbuckers.

The concept was that I wanted a bass with a body made from a piece of patagonian lenga that came from my birthtown in patagonia, cos i wanted to have a bass with a body that came from the same place as my body lol. The rest of the bass is also made of argentinean source woods, as I have a wood shop for luthiers near my house, so the neck is Guatambu (similar to maple) and the freboard is Jacaranda, cos it is the one they had in the shop and I liked the color of it.

 

Thanks!!! I make sure I give it some linseed oil every six months, I do that with all my rosewood or similar fretboards. It really does magic.

 

Dunno if this is useful or interesting or not ... but just for fun I took closeups of four rosewood boards (mfg lists them as such anyway) I was in the process of cleaning/oiling today. Three from early 80's Japan or Taiwan and a more recent G&L Tribute from I don't know where (Indonesia I think) that is pre CITES and was sold as Rosewood. Note all of these look MUCH darker in person, the photo really brings out the lighter colors and streaks that you don't notice normally.


And this is a very recent G&L Tribute from indonesia with what they are calling Brazilian Cherry

 

Recently got my first Jatoba fretboard. I am sold on it. Looks HOT and plays really really nicely.

 

OP it could also be padauk (?). Here is a rare mid '65 Fender p with padauk fretboard.

 

Just looks like pretty nice rosewood to me, my 2012 US Music Man Sterling's rosewood fingerboard looks pretty similar (photo makes it look considerably darker than my eyeballs do).

 

Just so you know, there are a lot of different woods that are commonly called rosewood. It's kind of an exercise in semantics as to whether or not something is "real" rosewood, as everyone has their own definition of what woods count as "real". Also, there are a lot of rosewood fretboards out there that haver been dyed darker. Ebony is also very commonly dyed so it's all black.

People seem to be enamored with wood that doesn't really look like wood nowadays. I, however, choose to go my own path. I think this fretboard looks cool because of its variation, and went out of my way to buy it:

 

I know this an old thread but I was looking on some info about the Fret Board I have on my Sterling SUB RAY4. It came with a Jatoba fret board, never heard of it until I was looking at the bass before I bought it.

I really like this Jatoba wood for the F/B and my experience mirrors yours on how it plays/feels. I use the RAY4 more than my other basses now.