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Question for you with ebony fretboards


chiro972

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My fretting fingers are getting all black at the tips. I put on a new set of strings, but it still does it. Is there some kind of dye that is usually on them that does this to your fingertips? Or is it just mine?

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Originally posted by chiro972

My fretting fingers are getting all black at the tips. I put on a new set of strings, but it still does it. Is there some kind of dye that is usually on them that does this to your fingertips? Or is it just mine?

My tips get black from new strings not from my ebony fretboard. I think anyway.:D

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Is this a new guitar? Ebony does not come off and won't dye your hands (i have two violins with ebony boards). If your hands are turning black it sounds like you may have a fretboard that was stained to look like ebony. I've heard of a lot of people doing this to dark rosewood boards.

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Originally posted by acravero

Is this a new guitar? Ebony does not come off and won't dye your hands (i have two violins with ebony boards). If your hands are turning black it sounds like you got something that was stained to look like ebony.

 

 

My Burny LPC copy has a rosewood fretboard that's stained to look like ebony and it makes my fingers pretty black too.

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Well, It's an Agile Harm 1. I don't want to get into the whole war on Agile quality. (I love this guitar by the way) But I don't believe Kurt would advertise it as ebony if it was not.

 

Maybe it's the strings. I can't get anything to rub off the fingerboard with my other fingers.

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The statements above about stained ebony are correct... Many makers will stain ebony boards so that they are all black instead of having brown grain patterns. This stain will tend to rub off for a while. I have a Howard Roberts that did this for the first little while.

 

I also agree with the above that if often looks better if not stained- I have a '73 Hagstrom Swede that has a beautiful ebony board, and it has this gorgeous rootbeer flame to it that looks fantastic :cool:

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Originally posted by Josh S

I also agree with the above that if often looks better if not stained- I have a '73 Hagstrom Swede that has a beautiful ebony board, and it has this gorgeous rootbeer flame to it that looks fantastic
:cool:

 

The truth of the matter is the naturaly all black pieces of ebony are actually considered better, and are usually more expnesive.

However, I dont believe this to be common knowledge which is why Im suprised at how many ebony boards are dyed, when astheticaly the brown streaks look so much nicer.

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