Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Bishop
Ray, the fretboard is most likely Pau Ferro.
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Tim, Ray, for awhile in the beginning, the Js and some Ms were made with Bubinga fingerboards before switching to Morado. This one looks like Bubinga on the FB.
Here's the reason. Before Morado became commercially popular in the Guitar industry only a select few were using the wood. It was not at that time sold as sliced/cut fingerboard blanks. It was sold as lumber, 1" planks, random width, random length, random grain. Some pieces were quarter grain/vertical and some flat grain. Wide flat grain pieces we used for Tops. Narrow flat grain we used for neck strips. All of the 1" lumber had to be re-sawn, sliced in half.
Morado is very dense and its makup was hell on blades. In one shipment of lumber we were slicing we had 5 foot boards about 4-5 inches wide, mostly quartered fb grain but not all. We had an order for Japan to make about 300 FB blanks which were used on the Burners after 1993. We would get about 5 or 6 boards sliced in the band saw and then the blade was shot. For re-sawing Morado I would by 3 boxes of blades at a time, about 6-10 per box I think. These were 1" or so blades for a big old Porter Cable saw, 5hp or so. Could cut a Buick in half.. lol
Bubinga was also sold only as lumber and still is. The Morado in comparison is a much smaller tree, more defects in the lumber, lower yield per foot and only some of it suitable for FB cuts. The Bubinga is huge long, wide boards, mostly quarter grain, mostly defect free so much much higher yield in cutting parts out of it. One board I remember took two of us to move. It was about 24 inches wide, 16 feet long and was perfect just like a prime fingerboards. Two of these boards would make a Presidential conference table.
A few years later I met a wood supplier/importer than just starting cutting Fingerboard blanks in Bolivia (or Brazil?) out of Morado, perfectly quarter grained and wide and long for 5 and 6 string fingerboards. They also had regular boards for Guitar and 4-string bass that they would then sell in place of Rosewood to some major guitar companies that would make the switch from Rosewood.
We bought over the next few years 2-3,000 boards or so. A lot. I can't remember the quantity but I would buy several years of wood each order. It was such a good deal and no more re-sawing Morado for FBs and, we could replace the Bubinga FBs as well. At that point, the Js and Ms were switched to Morado. The first few years of these models however were made with beautiful quartered Bubinga boards which we made from lumber ourselves.
So, there you have the explanation why and how this bass came to have a Bubinga board..