man-made materials for fretboards
andrew_s
I'm about to embark on building up a project guitar (rebuilding from a
Squier Strat) and one of the things I'm thinking about (dreaming about
perhaps) is the material for the fretboard. Traditionally it's been a
choice of Rosewood or Maple, but I'm thinking about things like Parker
guitars which have a completely man made fretboard. I used to have a
335 copy made by Aslin Dane which had a Superphenol fretboard. I've
still got an Aslin Dane MM Sihouette copy which has the Superphenol
fretboard. This is some kind of man made composite which really is a
great material for a fretboard. It looks like ebony and is
tremendously "slippy". Seeing we've had a recent excursion in the
newgroup to talk about NAS I thought I'd open up a thread to talk
about man-made composites for fretboards. Slightly more guitar
related.
So here goes. Google doesn't find much on Superphenol other than
reviews of Aslin Dane guitars so I guess that it must be a marketing
term for whatever they finished the fretbaords with. A-D's website
seems to have disappeared too so there's not much of an easy way to
ask them what it actually was. maybe the easiest option is to look
out for an A-D strat copy appearing on ebay and buy it. That would be
one way of getting a composite finished fretboad for a Strat. Googling
Phenol suggests that it's a less than ideal thing to use, even if I
could work out how to get it applied to a guitar neck. Parker's use a
carbon fibre composite. (I think). That's maybe a bit expensive,
again with difficulties in working out to apply it to a wooden neck.
Any chemists or woodworking laminators out there got any suggestions
about this? This is, at the moment, just an idea. If I can find a way
to do it that isn't stupidly expensive, I just might have a go.
cheers
andrew_s
Chris
'Superphenol' is most likely a made-up name for something involving
phenol-formaldehyde resin like the more well known material called
Tufnol (http://www.tufnol.co.uk/tufnol/default.asp). Phenol, by
itself, is also known as carbolic acid and is poisonous to many living
things, as is Formaldehyde, but together their angst is quelled, as it
were, rather like sodium and chlorine in salt. People in the US
appear to refer to materials made using p-f resin as 'phenolic'.
Tufnol, often made from layers of linen impregnated in p-f resin, is
easily machined to a smooth finish and is obtainable in sheet form.
Chris
(no connection to Tufnol Composites Ltd.)
icarusi
news:b0c09c73-cfc4-4fec...@u34g2000yqu.googlegroups.com...
> Any chemists or woodworking laminators out there got any suggestions
> about this? This is, at the moment, just an idea. If I can find a way
> to do it that isn't stupidly expensive, I just might have a go.
Hagstrom use 'resinator wood':-
"Resinator Wood is a wood composite material that is homogeneous in nature
and is more stable than any standard wood product. It is the perfect
fingerboard material in that it eliminates wolf tones or hot spots. It has
an articulate sound like high quality Ebony without the problems associated
with Ebony."
I didn't like the feel of it, but I don't like the feel of maple
fingerboards, other than satin finished. Don't like Rickenbacker varnished
rosewood fingerbaords either.
icarusi
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Mr. Green
Phenol is a common coating used on wood. Phenol coated plywood is also
know as wagon-board and is used as flooring on the back of trucks and
lorrys. Don't know if that's helpful.
MrGreen