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Post subject: What does "slab board" mean?
Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 5:24 pm
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Hello everyone. What do people mean when they say a strat has a slab board fret board? Is this suppose to be "better" than one that's not a slab board? Thanks in advance for your information.

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Post subject: Re: What does "slab board" mean?
Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 7:43 pm
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bshane84...Slab Board refers to the thickness of the rosewood slab that was put onto strats when they went away from the one piece maple necks. The rosewood slab for the fingerboard was milled flat on the bottom and then glued onto the maple neck which was also milled flat to accept the rosewood fingerboard.

Sometime in 1962 they reduced the thickness of the rosewood "Slab" and then started to curve the bottom of the fingerboard to match the neck and over the course of 1962 the rosewood board became thinner...thus the earlier versions being called Slab Boards.

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Post subject: Re: What does "slab board" mean?
Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 1:28 am
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A picture's worth a thousand words:

Image

Slab board on the left, veneer board on the right. Veneer boards are also called "round lam" (laminate) fretboards.

edit: don't let the neck dates confuse you -- those are Mustang necks and slab vs veneer happened at different times for them than for Strats. When rosewood fretboards were introduced on Strats in mid '59 they were slab boards, then switched to veneer in mid '62 and stayed veneer until the mid '80s.


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Post subject: Re: What does "slab board" mean?
Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:50 pm
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strayedstrater wrote:
A picture's worth a thousand words:

Image

Slab board on the left, veneer board on the right. Veneer boards are also called "round lam" (laminate) fretboards.

edit: don't let the neck dates confuse you -- those are Mustang necks and slab vs veneer happened at different times for them than for Strats. When rosewood fretboards were introduced on Strats in mid '59 they were slab boards, then switched to veneer in mid '62 and stayed veneer until the mid '80s.


Strayedstrater...thanks for the assist with the photos...and that one sure does illustrate it perfectly!

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Post subject: Re: What does "slab board" mean?
Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:25 am
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the slab wood or flat wood is explain in this Fender article :
http://www.fender.com/fr-FR/news/index. ... rticle=714
It's the opposite of the quarter sawn cut...


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Post subject: Re: What does "slab board" mean?
Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:04 pm
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No, they use quartersawn rosewood for both slab and veneer boards (rosewood's grain is much prettier when quartersawn). Slab/flat/plain sawn refers to how raw lumber is cut -- a "slab fretboard" refers to something else entirely.

Since my previous links have expired, here's a pic to show what we're talking about:
Image

On a neck with a slab fretboard, the bottom of the fretboard is flat and it's glued onto a flat surface on the top of the maple neck, so the fretboard is thicker at the middle and thinner at the edges. A '60s "round laminate" or "veneer" fretboard is curved on the bottom to match the top of the fretboard and the top surface of the maple neck is curved to match that -- the rosewood is the same thickness in the middle of the board as it is at the edges.

(Just to prevent confusion among those who know the Tele/Strat timeline for slab/veneer: the necks in the pic are Mustang necks -- they didn't switch from slab to veneer at the same time as the higher-end models.)


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Post subject: Re: What does "slab board" mean?
Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:26 pm
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Yes I believe you are right strayedstrater. I think the article bluestratfr has mentioned refers to the cut of the actual maple neck rather than anything to do with the fretboard. :D


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