Fretboard and neck wood, opinions?

kerneltime

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I am in the process of selecting woods for neck and fretboard and am overwhelmed by the choices.. have traditionally not really put much thought into these until recently. For those who have been down this path, would love to hear your stories and opinions.
 
I am in the process of selecting woods for neck and fretboard and am overwhelmed by the choices.. have traditionally not really put much thought into these until recently. For those who have been down this path, would love to hear your stories and opinions.

The neck is almost invisible, but the fretboard material can make a big difference in appearance. I had a couple of plastic Fluke boards replaced - one light and one dark. Each looks great on the particular uke it's on. Lighter-colored woods can look good as a fretboard.

I'm trying to decide what to do with my latest Fluke project. I'm painting autumn leaves on the body, and I thought I'd have Neck Illusions make a matching graphic for the fretboard. On the other hand, I also thought about making a new fretboard out of lighter wood. There's no sense in covering a nice-looking fretboard.
 
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Neck wood can decide weight and sound of a uke as well as hidden looks.

Yes, if you deal with a custom builder that knows their stuff they have strong opinions on neck materials. The tried and true from classical guitar necks is mahogany and Spanish cedar. Fretboard material is typically ebony or rosewood.

I have instruments with both neck materials as well as Port Orford cedar, all have worked well. I like macassar ebony for fretboard because of the brown streaks. Koolau uses it a lot and I trust Noa Bonk’s knowledge and expertise. I have instruments with regular black ebony, macassari ebony and rosewood for their fretboards
 
If you're bespeaking a custom ukulele, then ask your builder; that's what you're paying all that money for.

And just to give you a concrete example of the woods all of us are using: my favorite ukulele has a maple neck and a laburnum fretboard.
 
Aside from appearance, different fretboard woods can also feel different to the fingers and some can have tendency to change colour more, or also wear more easily. I have ukes with rosewood and koa fretboards, and guitars with ebony, rosewood, walnut, and maple fretboards. On the guitars, the walnut is my favourite followed by ebony, while I love the koa fretboards of my Kamaka and KoAloha ukes. The major disadvantage of koa for fretboards is that it changes colour through contact with fingers, resulting in ugly wear patters over time.
 
Yes, if you deal with a custom builder that knows their stuff they have strong opinions on neck materials. The tried and true from classical guitar necks is mahogany and Spanish cedar. Fretboard material is typically ebony or rosewood.

I have instruments with both neck materials as well as Port Orford cedar, all have worked well. I like macassar ebony for fretboard because of the brown streaks. Koolau uses it a lot and I trust Noa Bonk’s knowledge and expertise. I have instruments with regular black ebony, macassari ebony and rosewood for their fretboards
The builder is great. I am on a self education mission and am in general investigating before discussing the build. The aesthetics play a role here and that is why I am looking at Macassar ebony and other such as Cocobolo and zircote.. the back and sides are going to be an amazing set of pheasant wood, the top might be earthtone cedar (google it), the neck and fretboard are still open in my mind. Curly mahogany neck is one choice.. any how I am dwindling down my UAS and each new uke now has to be that much more special. On that note, I need to sell a few ukes in Jan :)
 
Aside from appearance, different fretboard woods can also feel different to the fingers and some can have tendency to change colour more, or also wear more easily. I have ukes with rosewood and koa fretboards, and guitars with ebony, rosewood, walnut, and maple fretboards. On the guitars, the walnut is my favourite followed by ebony, while I love the koa fretboards of my Kamaka and KoAloha ukes. The major disadvantage of koa for fretboards is that it changes colour through contact with fingers, resulting in ugly wear patters over time.
I do notice the varying wear on fretboards but have not paid attention to the role played by the fretboard in terms of feel between Ukes.. will try to gauge my sensitivity to it. Thanks!
 
If you're bespeaking a custom ukulele, then ask your builder; that's what you're paying all that money for.

And just to give you a concrete example of the woods all of us are using: my favorite ukulele has a maple neck and a laburnum fretboard.
Which maple did you use? Is the neck heavy? How heavy is the overall uke? Why maple?
 

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Which maple did you use? Is the neck heavy? How heavy is the overall uke? Why maple?

Please forgive me, but I misspoke. My neck isn't maple. It is English walnut. I will answer the questions for walnut.

My neck is English walnut and it is rather dark with black straight-grain striations. I actually smells really good.

The weight is negligible. After all, it is a ukulele. I don't notice any weight, but I use a strap 100% of the time.

Why English walnut? Because the builder suggested it, and that suggestion fit into the theme of an all-British uke.

Lastly, since you are contemplating necks, think about the shape of the neck. I had never given neck shapes a single thought. Fortunately, my ukulele came with a flattened neck. I never would have requested such a thing, but now that I have it, I simply love it. Flat makes so much more sense than round for a resting place for your thumb. Whether you agree or not is not important. What's important is to realize that there are different neck shapes to choose from.
 
Lastly, since you are contemplating necks, think about the shape of the neck. I had never given neck shapes a single thought. Fortunately, my ukulele came with a flattened neck. I never would have requested such a thing, but now that I have it, I simply love it. Flat makes so much more sense than round for a resting place for your thumb. Whether you agree or not is not important. What's important is to realize that there are different neck shapes to choose from.

I agree, and Shawn has a vid on the topic.
 
Well I'm going to be a bit of a contrarian here and suggest synthetic "plastic" Richlite for the fretboard. Gibson now uses it on even high end guitars, and without close inspection it is hard to tell it from ebony. It never wears out, doesn't dent, doesn't need conditioning, and best of all it doesn't shrink, so you'll never get fret sprout.
 
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I have an Oya tenor made of quilted maple with a Sitka spruce top. It has a maple neck with a Cocobolo fretboard. The neck is a flattened "D" shape and is fast and easy to play. Even with a gloss finish. (I did a NUD on it a while ago.)

1 Front-crop.jpg 1 Back-crop.jpg

Overall, I prefer a close-grain ebony or rosewood fretboard, but those are getting rare to find. The grains are not as tight as they used to be as demand has gone up. But the Cocobolo on the Oya tenor also works well and looks great.

I've read good things about the Richlite fretboards, but have no experience with them.
 
For looks, that curly mahogany might be the best. I usually just let the builder select the neck material, but my visual preference is curly maple.
 
I have experience with Mahogany, Spanish Cedar, and Butternut for necks. I like the Spanish Cedar and Butternut better than the Mahogany for looks. Mahogany tends to have a reddish tone to me, and I like the lighter, earthier tones of the other two woods better. If you look at the Petros NUD from a couple days ago that you commented on, it has the Butternut neck in case you wanted to go back and look. It's lightweight and I think would work well with your wood choices, as would the Spanish Cedar.

I only have experience with black ebony fretboards, but I really like the look of the maple fretboards that Mya-Moe uses on their Cascade Series ukes. It's against the norm but might offer a neat contrast to your wood choices. You can just Google Mya-Moe Cascade Series, and some pics will come up if you wanted to take a look.

No matter what you choose, the earthtone cedar and pheasantwood should make a great paring.

Good luck, and I look forward to seeing the finished product.
 
I like striped maple the best for necks. Cocobolo is my fave for fretboards, by far.
 
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