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Post subject: Does rosewood darken with age?
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 11:26 am
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I see a lot of photos of old Fender guitars of various vintages (Strats especially) and notice when there's a rosewood fingerboard it looks normally quite dark. Practically like ebony. So does Rosewood darken with age or was ebony often used in the past instead of rosewood?


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Post subject: Re: Does rosewood darken with age?
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 11:36 am
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Location: Paris France
Ebony was an exception and almost never used in the past.
But if you take care of your rosewood fingerboard and pamper it with recommended oils,
It will appreciates and provides you with a long time soft and sweet pleasure.
Do it regularly , just when changing strings ....

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Post subject: Re: Does rosewood darken with age?
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 11:40 am
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Location: Denver, CO, USA
Fender never used ebony in the '60s or '70s. (edited to clarify that I'm not disagreeing with Alain -- they may have built a few special order guitars with ebony, but they never used it for general production guitars.)

Rosewood darkens if you keep it oiled (either with a lemon oil type product or just by playing it a lot and letting it absorb the oils from your fingers).

And rosewood is a depleted resource -- the really dark, naturally oily & waxy pieces are much rarer and more expensive nowadays. Much of the currently acceptable rosewood would have been rejected back in the day.


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Post subject: Re: Does rosewood darken with age?
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 1:40 pm
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Thanks both. Yeah I didn't think it would be ebony.


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Post subject: Re: Does rosewood darken with age?
Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2011 7:10 am
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"...And rosewood is a depleted resource -- the really dark, naturally oily & waxy pieces are much rarer and more expensive nowadays. Much of the currently acceptable rosewood would have been rejected back in the day..."

Don't think that's accurate. We have tons of dark rosewood, and it always oxidizes and moreso if you play a bunch.

ME


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Post subject: Re: Does rosewood darken with age?
Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2011 9:02 am
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Location: Denver, CO, USA
My comment about today's rosewood was about the general supply of rosewood, not the rosewood the Custom Shop uses. Of course you guys have access to fine pieces of rosewood. It's still around -- just not common enough to be regularly used on mass-production guitars like it used to be.

Back then Duo-sonics, LP Jrs, and other "student guitars" usually had rosewood that was nicer than what goes onto American Standards today.


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