kramersteen
PowerMetalRaph
Re: How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
Maple fretboards vs Maple syrup
Maple fretboards vs Maple syrup
How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
- Thread starter GuitarStv
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constant mesh
New member
Re: How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
Just to put things into perspective, hardness is the resistance of wood towards denting (Janka test). Just like poking or stabing it with a screwdriver. Sugar maple is almost twice as hard as alder or ash and about 1.5 times as hard as mahogany. But all rosewoods are three times harder than sugar maple (ebony tops at even more). Even regular birch comes close or exceeds sugar maple by just a hair.
Stiffness and strenght are measured with three-point bending. You wouldn't believe that maple is just a tad stronger than let's say ash. So a seesaw out of ash would be great too!
The density of maple is about 750 kg per m3 and rosewood comes to about 830. Not a big difference if you take into the account that rosewood is harder, and much stronger, therefore you can cut thinner slabs to save WEIGHT. But Myaccount876 would still use maple as you know rosewood is so heavy you need 4 slaves and a mule to carry a single fretboard.
What's so hard to understand? Get to your local woodworker and ask him for a valid wood property chart. And maybe ask him a little about it, they love to share. Sugar maple is indeed the strongest, hardest and the most dense kind of maple there is.
If you have never dealt with maple and only played it, then you probably don't know enough. Maple feels very spongy, mechanically. It dents easily when pulling frets, and seating new frets into it feels like driving them in a bar of soap. That alone tells me more about it than just shouting out it's super hard.
And wrong again, I like maple. But I don't like guys who don't do their research.
Data taken from Theodor Nagel's chart for 2011.
Just to put things into perspective, hardness is the resistance of wood towards denting (Janka test). Just like poking or stabing it with a screwdriver. Sugar maple is almost twice as hard as alder or ash and about 1.5 times as hard as mahogany. But all rosewoods are three times harder than sugar maple (ebony tops at even more). Even regular birch comes close or exceeds sugar maple by just a hair.
Stiffness and strenght are measured with three-point bending. You wouldn't believe that maple is just a tad stronger than let's say ash. So a seesaw out of ash would be great too!
The density of maple is about 750 kg per m3 and rosewood comes to about 830. Not a big difference if you take into the account that rosewood is harder, and much stronger, therefore you can cut thinner slabs to save WEIGHT. But Myaccount876 would still use maple as you know rosewood is so heavy you need 4 slaves and a mule to carry a single fretboard.
What's so hard to understand? Get to your local woodworker and ask him for a valid wood property chart. And maybe ask him a little about it, they love to share. Sugar maple is indeed the strongest, hardest and the most dense kind of maple there is.
If you have never dealt with maple and only played it, then you probably don't know enough. Maple feels very spongy, mechanically. It dents easily when pulling frets, and seating new frets into it feels like driving them in a bar of soap. That alone tells me more about it than just shouting out it's super hard.
And wrong again, I like maple. But I don't like guys who don't do their research.
Data taken from Theodor Nagel's chart for 2011.
Myaccount876
Amira-Maker
Re: How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
A janka rating of 1450 is still a HARD wood. Absolutely, there are much harder woods, but the way you're describing it is you're making hard maple sound like balsa wood. That is my problem with what's you're saying. I applaud the research (I don't care for the 4 slaves/mile comment so much), but the years have simply proven maple is a very suitable wood for making stringed I instruments. There are times and places for applications, and maple is still a great wood for necks and fingerboards.
About denting while tearing frets, that has never happened to me (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say YET) but maple is not the only wood with problems during fretjobs. For example, you must be extremely careful when working with ebony, because it is prone to tearing when pulling frets. There are just trade-offs to every choice in materials.
But you did give wrong information in that the weight of maple will bring the neck down. We have both established rosewood is denser and heavier (even if only slightly, and for the sake of simplicity we will say the thinner rosewood is about the same weight as the full maple board) so there is no reason to complain about maple bringing the neck down without complaining about rosewood, and especially ebony which you for some reason did not mention in the density/weight section of your post.
As for maple feeling spongey, I wonder what maple you are using.
Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2
A janka rating of 1450 is still a HARD wood. Absolutely, there are much harder woods, but the way you're describing it is you're making hard maple sound like balsa wood. That is my problem with what's you're saying. I applaud the research (I don't care for the 4 slaves/mile comment so much), but the years have simply proven maple is a very suitable wood for making stringed I instruments. There are times and places for applications, and maple is still a great wood for necks and fingerboards.
About denting while tearing frets, that has never happened to me (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say YET) but maple is not the only wood with problems during fretjobs. For example, you must be extremely careful when working with ebony, because it is prone to tearing when pulling frets. There are just trade-offs to every choice in materials.
But you did give wrong information in that the weight of maple will bring the neck down. We have both established rosewood is denser and heavier (even if only slightly, and for the sake of simplicity we will say the thinner rosewood is about the same weight as the full maple board) so there is no reason to complain about maple bringing the neck down without complaining about rosewood, and especially ebony which you for some reason did not mention in the density/weight section of your post.
As for maple feeling spongey, I wonder what maple you are using.
Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2
Last edited:
Zerberus
Baron Von Shred
Re: How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
Mostly tradition, though there are valid reasons in the woodworking /structural and cosmetics areas.
In a very small nutshell: Maple is less stable than ebony or RW and softer as well, and on an acoutsic the fretboard has a significantly larger load-bearing role than on an electric. Less so on a nylon, where they actually can be seen somewhat regularly, esp. on instruments designed for flamenco and other "brighter" styles. The other main concern is that unfinished maple tarnishes very fast, but most acoustic players don`t like fihished fretboards because it kind of "goes against the purpose" (a bit of a stigmata thing).
But it most certainly CAN be done.
Mostly tradition, though there are valid reasons in the woodworking /structural and cosmetics areas.
In a very small nutshell: Maple is less stable than ebony or RW and softer as well, and on an acoutsic the fretboard has a significantly larger load-bearing role than on an electric. Less so on a nylon, where they actually can be seen somewhat regularly, esp. on instruments designed for flamenco and other "brighter" styles. The other main concern is that unfinished maple tarnishes very fast, but most acoustic players don`t like fihished fretboards because it kind of "goes against the purpose" (a bit of a stigmata thing).
But it most certainly CAN be done.
L
Little Pigbacon
Guest
youngthrasher9
New member
Re: How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
+1
Most steel string acoustics have a truss rod just like electric guitars.
+1
Most steel string acoustics have a truss rod just like electric guitars.
youngthrasher9
New member
Re: How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
True, this is an understandable explanation.
True, this is an understandable explanation.
Zerberus
Baron Von Shred
Re: How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
Because a 1.5" slab of solid wood is massively stronger than a sheet about 2 mm thick.?
Remember, on acoustics, the neck STOPS at the neck-body transition, and the only things strengthening the system between teh soundhole and the neck joint is the fretboard and the top, there is little to no bracing in that area. Without the fretboard, the top would simply cave in on most traditional styles.
Because a 1.5" slab of solid wood is massively stronger than a sheet about 2 mm thick.?
Remember, on acoustics, the neck STOPS at the neck-body transition, and the only things strengthening the system between teh soundhole and the neck joint is the fretboard and the top, there is little to no bracing in that area. Without the fretboard, the top would simply cave in on most traditional styles.
youngthrasher9
New member
Re: How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
Hmm, I never realized this before.
Because a 1.5" slab of solid wood is massively stronger than a sheet about 2 mm thick.?
Remember, on acoustics, the neck STOPS at the neck-body transition, and the only things strengthening the system between teh soundhole and the neck joint is the fretboard and the top, there is little to no bracing in that area. Without the fretboard, the top would simply cave in on most traditional styles.
Hmm, I never realized this before.
L
Little Pigbacon
Guest
Re: How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
I didn't know that either. I'd always thought that little block thingie on the inside was bigger. (Shows you how much time I've spent with acoustics.)
Because a 1.5" slab of solid wood is massively stronger than a sheet about 2 mm thick.?
Remember, on acoustics, the neck STOPS at the neck-body transition, and the only things strengthening the system between teh soundhole and the neck joint is the fretboard and the top, there is little to no bracing in that area. Without the fretboard, the top would simply cave in on most traditional styles.
I didn't know that either. I'd always thought that little block thingie on the inside was bigger. (Shows you how much time I've spent with acoustics.)
Re: How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
Well, on steel string acoustics, there is the neck block and quite a large transverse brace under the tongue of the fretboard that help stabilize that area.
Like I said earlier, lots of old, inexpensive guitars used maple boards dyed black, and they hold up just fine. Guitar players are a finicky lot, and I just think that there's not enough of a market for maple boarded acoustics.
Well, on steel string acoustics, there is the neck block and quite a large transverse brace under the tongue of the fretboard that help stabilize that area.
Like I said earlier, lots of old, inexpensive guitars used maple boards dyed black, and they hold up just fine. Guitar players are a finicky lot, and I just think that there's not enough of a market for maple boarded acoustics.
Zerberus
Baron Von Shred
Re: How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
The neck block helps, no question about it, and again its mostly tradition and finicky guitar players. It`s not like you would have to completely redesigh the guitat, just make the fretboard a bit thicker.
And I should also add that when I say traditional styles I`m thinking of about 40 or 50ish different designs from stauffer throught Schlaggitarren past Torella tangenting on Dreadnaughts and ending up at nylon gypsy..... the very old as well as the more modern designs would for the most part hold up better without a fretboard in the theoretical example, save for those that go for as little bracing as possible and are already borderlining on unstable (but therfore also explosively responsive as nitroglycerin). But many of the different styles that were developed over the hundreds of years of history of the guitar (and are still somewhat popular today in a niche way but not the mass market) would, well, accordion themselves under string tension.
The neck block helps, no question about it, and again its mostly tradition and finicky guitar players. It`s not like you would have to completely redesigh the guitat, just make the fretboard a bit thicker.
And I should also add that when I say traditional styles I`m thinking of about 40 or 50ish different designs from stauffer throught Schlaggitarren past Torella tangenting on Dreadnaughts and ending up at nylon gypsy..... the very old as well as the more modern designs would for the most part hold up better without a fretboard in the theoretical example, save for those that go for as little bracing as possible and are already borderlining on unstable (but therfore also explosively responsive as nitroglycerin). But many of the different styles that were developed over the hundreds of years of history of the guitar (and are still somewhat popular today in a niche way but not the mass market) would, well, accordion themselves under string tension.
stringbender11
New member
Re: How come you never see maple fretboards on acoustic guitars?
Learn something new all the time, I had always assumed maple was harder than rosewood.
Learn something new all the time, I had always assumed maple was harder than rosewood.
