Smallman Carbon Fiber Fingerboards

[schrammguitars]

Just curious if any of you Aussie luthiers make carbon fiber/epoxy fingerboards like the ones made by Greg Smallman and sons for the past 10 years or so? I don't hear much talk about them here in the USA, so I wondered if maybe it was something catching on down under.

[Tod Gilding]

Hi David,
I am not sure if anyone at ANZLF is useing CF Fingerboards, but I did read your post years ago on this subject here
http://www.acousticguitar.com/ubbcgi/ul ... 7;t=010052

you have obviously been working along these lines for sometime now, can I ask where you are at with your CF fingerboards ? have you produced a guitar with your own CF fingerboard ?

[Kim]

I refurbed an 89 Epiphone X-1000 Superstrat replacing the bridge posts for new ones made of tool steel so that the notorious "under licence" KB Steinburger (the one big short fall of these guitars) will now last forever...and was really taken by the "Ebonol" fretboard fitted to these Korean made guitars. Smooth as cat's whiskers and never moves a mm regardless of humidity which is a really good thing when you have a floating bridge with counter spring and fine tune adjusters to contend with. A closer look at the FB and you can see the edge of each layer of fibre where it has been cut through to form the radius. A 1/16th sample drill (refilled invisibly with CA later) followed by a quick sniff, fills the nostrils with that unmistakable smell of phenolic resin.

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OK so its a metal heads thrash axe, but the fretboard impressed me enough to send me scouting for some compact laminate off cuts (high pressure baked laminate of kraft paper and phenolic resins) left over from washroom and laboratory fit outs etc so I could make my own with this jig.



And that's all "ebonol" is folks, HPL, kraft paper and phenolic resin placed under lots of pressure and baked so the paper becomes stabilised, hard, heavy, waterproof, can't be stained, can't rot, and moves very little regardless of what the RH is doing.... I also grabbed two nice large 600 x 1200 x 13mm pieces to bond together for a new router table top

Cheers

Kim

[schrammguitars]

Still a side project for me. Although a machinist friend of mine is very interested and is making some molds for me. Greg's lattice guitars have had a lot of influence on classical guitar construction, but his fingerboards haven't caught on yet. Maybe most players don't even know they are carbon fiber. I know a dealer that has been selling Smallman guitars for quite some time that wasn't even aware the fingerboards were carbon fiber until he was told about it recently. I bet there are a lot of Smallman owners that don't even realize that the fingerboards have been made of CF/epoxy since about 2001.