Blackwood Tek Fretboards for luthiers and cigar box guitar makers
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- Introducing Blackwood Tek - a great and "green" alternative to rosewood and ebony, and ideal for guitar fretboards. I am so impressed by this material that we are going to be using this on our own ChickenboneJohn guitars, and we are also offering it to other guitar makers. I believe we are the first cigar box guitar maker to use this material and to offer it as fretboards and as part of guitar kits and necks.
Because of CITES restrictions, a lot of the big manufactures have moved to materials such as Pau Ferro (a tropical forest hardwood) and "roasted" maple, or composite synthetic products such as Richlite. I believe that moving to other tropical forest hardwoods will just delay the evil day that another timber gets scarce and becomes protected due to over-harvesting, and the synthetics have a large proportion of phenolic resins in them, which can hardly be regarded as green or environmentally friendly.
Ideally we'd be recycling old timber, but we we need a reliable source of consistent timber for a larger number of fretboards, and we don't have the resources or manpower to be sourcing, resawing and planing timber in the quantities that we need to. This is our first batch Blackwood Tek ,and we have over one thousand pieces in stock and ready to go.
It is made from Pinus Radiata, the New Zealand pine, plantation grown and FSC approved. It is pressure treated and through-coloured as part of the processing, which results in a durable, hard and dense material, which compares directly with ebony and rosewood. It saws, planes and sands well, and is ideally suited for slotting for frets and drilling for inlays.
www.chickenbon...
Really glad you're doing this as I got some for you.
Great decision, John!
Just bought one prefretted makes the build so much easier. The colour contrast looks great against a light oak neck. Easy to work with so long as you keep in mind it is brittle in comparison to oak. I found out putting in the last fret (19th) but can be glued easily.
Long story short I would buy and use it again.
Awesome bro,Mick from down under 🇳🇿👍❤️
Excellent information and makes sense of the cheap, but surprisingly good, guitar I bought being described as having a Blackwood fretboard (elsewhere they added 'pinus radiata' parenthetically).
As Fender are producing premium instruments with roasted pine bodies these days, it would be nice if they'd just called it Blackwook Tek as these heat and compression treated softwoods seem excellent both mechanically and renewably. And I infinitely prefer the idea of using a treated softwood to a composite material like Richlite. Cheers!
The "roasting" or torrefaction process is different to the Blackwood Tek process. Torrefaction involves just a heat treatment in a low oxygen environment with no pressure or other liquids/solvents involved.
@@ChickenboneJohn Yes, I understand. By 'they' I meant the manufacturers of my cheap guitar, not Fender. I was just comparing the two as examples of using treated softwoods in lieu of hardwoods and that there still seems to be some stigma about it, when the resulting material is actually highly functional, sustainable, and inexpensive. Thanks for the great video and response, John. 👍
Thank you very much)
Hi John. This Blackwood Tek looks to be the best alternative from all that I have seen so far. Question: which original OEM makes this? And can we mortal small Luthiers buy from them? Thanks for any help.
Hi..available from me! www.chickenbonejohn.com/collections/fretboards-fretwire/products/blackwood-tek-fretboards
I wonder how it feels compared to ebony fretboard.
Very little difference - technically it is around the same hardness and density as ebony, and if you want you can sand and dry polish with Micromesh it to an almost glass-like sheen.
What is this stuff like for appearance and quality of finish? I'd expect it to look rather uniform without much figuring. I have just got a neck that is supposed to have a Blackwood Tek fretboard and it does look like rosewood. Unfortunately it looks like very poor quality rosewood. The surface is very rough. I have tried smoothing it without much success. I cannot decide whether it is just that the fretboard was only very rough sanded before it was fretted, or if it is because the material has a rough and open grain.
This stuff sands to a very smooth tight finish with no open grain - you can get it like glass if you use really fine MicroMesh abrasives.
I have a Blackwood fretboard on my new electric guitar . would you suggest using lemon oil on it when it gets dry ? Thank you
Lemon oil is fine..this is what we use...our own formulation. www.chickenbonejohn.com/products/chickenbone-john-miracle-guitar-tonic-and-fretboard-salve
I have a dark blackwood Tek fingerboard on one of my Reverend guitars and I like it just fine. But I do get black smudges on my fingertips when playing it. Is this common?
We've not had them long enough to be able to comment, and we've only got the brown rather than the black material.
Happened to me on a new guitar I bought. How long did it keep turning your fingers black? Is there and recommendations to help stop it?
@@muskymike1885 It seems to calm down after a few weeks / months. I no longer have that guitar though, so can't fully say.
Where can I get the fretboard treatment to darken the wood?
Just apply regular fretboard treatment oil (lemon oil) and it will go a lot darker. www.chickenbonejohn.com/products/chickenbone-john-miracle-guitar-tonic-and-fretboard-salve
You can also use good old lemmon oil
pinus radiata or Monterey pine is not from New Zealand and it would be good to not call this stuff "Blackwood" a word used in Australia for Acacaia Melanoxylon.
"All the wood used in Blackwood Tek is FSC® 100% Pinus radiata grown in short rotation plantations in New Zealand." So, yes. Yes, it is. And it's called Blackwood TEK.