How much influence does the fret board have on the sound of the CBG?

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on August 20, 2011 at 12:04am

Besides the feel of the wood on your fingers and its ability to hold frets, none. Its a cigar box.

But you will get great debate.

-WY

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Permalink Reply by Craig bluesbox williams on August 20, 2011 at 12:23am

     I made a few with  mahogany and the then i made some with Maple and some really hard zebra wood. Seemed to me the harder wood on the frett board made for a bit of a crisper sound. granted it is a very marginal difference.

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Permalink Reply by c# merle on August 20, 2011 at 3:16am

besides making a removable fretboard (attached with screws, perhaps), so you could swap over to try different boards, its pretty hard to compare wood on the same build. but any hardwood should sound good.

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Permalink Reply by Ben on August 20, 2011 at 11:16am

I certainly wouldn't discount the contribution of the wood to the sound. On violins, the fingerboard wood is very important. You want a hard, dense wood like a high-grade ebony that "reflects" the vibrations back into the string instead of absorbing the vibrations like pear wood (commonly used in cheaper violins). I would think that although the frets reduce the importance of this, there is still some vibration lost through the fret into the wood. Since walnut and cocobolo are pretty dense compared to oak, it would make sense.

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on August 20, 2011 at 1:09pm

The fretboard makes about a 5-10% difference in sound. The harder the wood, the crisper the sound. The softer the wood, the warmer the sound.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Revels on March 12, 2013 at 10:55am

Forgive me, but I am new to the forum and in the planning stages of my first CBG...  this may be the wrong place to ask...

But do you HAVE TO have a separate piece for the fingerboard or can you just slot the frets into the actual neck?  I have seen some (few) do this and wonder how much different would the sound is (good or bad) than the many I see with a separate piece for the fingerboard. 

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Permalink Reply by Craig Mayhem on March 12, 2013 at 11:14am

A: It's a stick and a box!

B: I've done both and there's not (much) difference. When I use a separate fretboard I tend to use poplar for the neck because it's easy to shape and when you add an oak (or other hardwood) fretboard it strengthens it up enough for cigar box work. When I don't use a separate fretboard I use red oak for the neck.

Some manufacturers use a 'no fretboard' approach for instruments. Deering uses maple (I believe) on it's 'Goodtime' line of banjos and the frets are right on the neck - no separate fretboard.

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on March 13, 2013 at 12:42am

The problem with installing the frets directly into the neck is that if you screw it up, then you end up throwing away all the work you've done to make the headstock, and the "thru the box" portion of the neck/headstock assembly. Making mistakes in a fretboard is rather easy, and the way most builders minimize this risk is to install the frets on a fretboard. Then if they screw it up, they can just throw away the bad fretboard and start over using a new blank fretboard blank. In this way they don't have to remake the headstock, etc. I know this from personal experiences.

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Permalink Reply by jabes on March 12, 2013 at 11:42am

i found a smashed acc guitar in a skip,and when i tried to salvage the fret board it was plywood! saved the fretwire and the tuners tho'

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Permalink Reply by Bad Wolf on March 12, 2013 at 11:57am

from what ive gathered red oak is kind of a crappy tonewood

just look at the woods normally used in guitars and go from there. very few if any ive ever seen use oak

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Permalink Reply by Craig Mayhem on March 12, 2013 at 3:57pm

Since I'm contrarian I'm tempted to build a red oak solid body ;-)

But seriously I don't think a red oak neck is going to make a cigar box sound significantly better/worse.

It's what I have readily available and the cbgs I've made with red oak necks haven't suffered.

Your mileage may vary. 

Of course, I'd love to have an easy source of maple, but c'est la vie

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Permalink Reply by Bad Wolf on March 12, 2013 at 9:01pm

well out of curiousity i did some more research and found quite a few guitars built with oak back and sides that were said to sound good. however i havent found anything with an oak neck

ive been thinking about giving oak a try for a cbg as i have some in my wood pile. guess its the only way to really know for sure 

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