Are rosewood boards stained brown, or is it their natural color?

[Lungimsam]

Are they stained brown, or is the color they come in their natural color? And why so many variations in tone?

 

From experience, the color stays the same whethter I oil it up or not. Never gets darker or lightwer. I can go a year with my pbass board with no treatment, and the thing is still almost black. QWhile, mt SG board always stays light.

[MrNylon]

I would think there is some type of a light oil applied to it to prevent drying out while in the case until purchased. I don't think it's stained though.

[neilpanda]

I believe the brown is their natural color. and like what gsgbass said the oil is just to

prevent drying of the fretboard while waiting to be purchased.

here, I found this on a lumber site...a freshly cut rosewood tree

[MrNylon]

Great photo of the natural rosewood.

[dem00n]

Only Ebony is stained.

[MrNylon]

After seeing the photo of the cut of the tree, I would probably change my vote to it comes that way from the tree.

[MrNylon]

They stain ebony? Cool, had no idea about ebony.

[Lungimsam]

Nice tree pic. That explains it. Looks just like the fingerboard colors. I guess the color depends on whatever length of the tree you got for your board - darker or lighter.

 

@gsgbass - I have had ebony users tell me that the stain comes off on their fingers when the guitar is new.

[MrNylon]

I get that with a new SG as well.(rosewood). I'm not sure if it's from the oils in the fretboard or from the new strings.

[MrNylon]

After about a month, the dark substance isn't anywhere near as much if at all on my finger tips, from the SG Std.

[L5Larry]

No. "Quality" rosewood and ebony as used on high-end guitars is NOT stained OR oiled. Both woods contain "natural" oils, and do not necessarily require "treatment". I've got 50-70 year old guitars and the only thing that has touched the rosewood fingerboards are my greasy little hands and the strings. They look and feel just like they did when new, maybe even better.

 

Now the operative word here is "quality" woods. The sources of these woods is completely different today than it used to be, thanks to the tree-huggers and rain forest protectionists. There was a reason that Brazilian rosewood was so sought after as a guitar wood, and as we know is no longer available. The exotic woods used today in guitar construction are from secondary (or second rate) sources. They vary greatly in density, color, and grain due to where and how they are grown, and the BEST woods are no longer available.

 

The currently available rosewood looks nothing like the rosewood on my 1947 L-7, or my 1960 Stratocaster, and in fact from the guitars I own from 1947 to 2000 you can see the rosewood getting gradually lighter in color, and I've seen even lighter (in color) rosewood boards on store rack guitars. Therefore it would not surprise me in the least to find out that some of these have to be stained to resemble what is generally accepted in appearance.

 

Here's a photo I put together for a previous discussion here on these boards.

 

[MrNylon]

I noticed over the years when Smith & Wesson used rosewood for some of their wooden grips on the large N-Frame revolvers. Lighter woods.

[Gaolee]

Nice tree pic. That explains it. Looks just like the fingerboard colors. I guess the color depends on whatever length of the tree you got for your board - darker or lighter.

 

@gsgbass - I have had ebony users tell me that the stain comes off on their fingers when the guitar is new.

 

I have had mahogany turn my fingers purple when working the wood. I doubt ebony is stained, but whatever chemicals naturally occur in the wood may react to some people's fingers like raw mahogany reacted with my fingers.