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| Forgive my ignorance but given how you guys worship your 1537s and #45, why has the mothership abandoned the walnut board (reissues excepted)?
Fingerboards definitely contribute to a guitar's sound so why has the walnut disappeared? Even if it is expensive I would have thought that it would still be around on the top end models.
I've never played one, Ovation or otherwise, so what do they feel like? More like rosewood or more like ebony? Or totally different? |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | Hard to describe the feel of the walnut board. I can feel the strings better. Like there is more information available to my fingers. This is subtle. When I play a guitar with an ebony fingerboard it feels slightly "cold."
As to why it's no longer used? Maybe for just the same reasons I described above. Or maybe high quality walnut is expensive and in short supply which out wieghs any advantage. That is is to say, I haven't a clue.
(cause I see daily loads of walnut and oak being hauled to the yard to make room for yet another spec home.) |
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Location: NJ | Walnut doesn't wear as well as ebony. |
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Location: Minden, Nebraska | Cliff has the basic answer. The reason for the great majority of acoustic guitar fretboards being made of rosewood or ebony is something other than tradition. |
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Location: SoCal | I've got both ebony and walnut fingerboards. Guess I'm ignorant, but I can't tell the difference in feel. Probably been hit in the head too many times for it to register.......
Cliff's right. Ebony and rosewood wear better, even with the black walnut impregnated with resins (which also, I would guess, make it more expensive to prepare).
I've never cared for the look of rosewood. Ebony, walnut, and maple look best to me. |
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Location: NJ | ". . Cliff has the basic answer. ."
Let's just all ponder that statement for a while, shall we?
Perhaps we should all adopt that as the official OFC creedo . . .
Thank You for recognizing that, Paul.
;) |
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Location: SoCal | Give enough monkeys typewriters and eventually...... |
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Location: NJ | . . . they'll elect one of their own? |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | ... they'll wear hawaiian shirts and chase bad guys? |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | I find there is a textural difference I can feel. I don't know how that translates into tonal/intonation differences, perhaps if I had a 1537 with an ebony board, I could. |
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Location: NJ | I agree.
I think it's more tactile than audial . . . |
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Location: SoCal | ... they'll get an answer right!
When you're cool, you wear Hawaiian shirts and chase bad guys. But then that's also how you get hit in the head one too many times..... |
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Location: Upper Left USA | And what about the Maple? |
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Location: closely held secret | Paul, maybe these guys can help you.... |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | I've been trying to stay on topic on this one. Really, I have. |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | I have never played, nor do I know if, one even exists, a classical ("nylon") guitar with a walnut fretboard.
Wear would hardly be an issue, but the tactile difference certainly would be. Clueless about sound. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | The walnut boards were impregnated with a clear acrylic and then cooked to cure it out so they were very hard, like ebony. They no longer are doing that process(it was complicated, was a PITA, didn't work all that well so had a high scrap rate, etc, etc) so the raw walunt boards are much softer and don't wear well SO they switched to ebony or rosewood. |
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Location: NJ | Were these finished fingerboards that were "treated", or was it the raw stock? |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | The slots were raw and finished. I think the impregnated boards started when we started up again, s/n 70. If not right away it was real soon.
The wood was raw stock when treated., you can't "treat" a completed fingerboard, it moves too much from the heat cooking the acrylic stuff. |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | What does that mean for the Adamas reissues? |
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| Don't lean them on the microwave. |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | look what you staRTED. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Don't know about the reissues but I can tell you that the price of jet fuel is going up. |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | And Paul said
Give enough monkeys typewriters and eventually...... To which Cliff replied... ... they'll select one of their own?
I have a feeling I am going to have to let out the "Trunk Monkey"! :p |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | Llama? |
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walnuts
