Pau Ferro?

The CITIES treaty - I get it, it's necessary, but it can be a pain in the a$$ sometimes. I had a PRS SE with a rosewood fretboard held up at the border for a month due to paperwork requirements, and the guitar actually had all the necessary paperwork.
Meanwhile, the Fender USA neck I ordered that had a rosewood fretboard, no delays. Go figure.
So yeah - replace the Pau Ferro with an MIA Neck

 

I don’t think there has been real rosewood, certainly no nice one in decades. And yes, it’s now restricted and likely for good reason. Another thing the Chinese ruined for us (what was left to ruin) with their furniture industry.
What’s sad is that Pao Ferro (or whatever exact version of that) now becomes labelled as a “cheap” replacement. I have it on my mid 90s Custom Shop strat and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It’s dense, pretty and the guitar sounds good (birdseye maple, pao ferro, relatively heavy ash body, poly finish - so all the good stuff that has been getting a bad rep for unclear reasons in the last few years).

 

I bet money you can’t tell the difference in sound between a Indian rosewood board and a Kansas Pisswood fingerboard, let alone Pau Ferro.

 

I always heard that too much masterbolting can cause blindness...

 

I was lucky to get a pau ferro fretboard with a nice grain and colour.

 

Nice...i see influences from the lil wayne school of guitar technique there....definitely needs a rosewood board to come alive....i stand corrected....

 

When I was upgrading to a better guitar I was fixed on obtaining a Martin with a Rosewood side and back. After weeks of searching such Martins I ended up choosing a Takamine with Ovankol sides and back. And I’m happy to report I’m very pleased with my purchase.
It leads me to believe Marketing had something to do with my initial preference.
I didn’t even know what Pau Ferro was until a few months ago.

 

SNAP.
I had to WIKI it as well.

 

Until somebody invents a neck with interchangeable fret boards, the entire discussion is kinda useless IMHO. Even if you swap out your Strat neck for one with a different fret board material, you have also changed out the rest of the neck. So any difference in sound could be attributed to the entire new neck, not just the fret board (or to expectation bias? Who knows...).
Every piece of wood is different, so even two otherwise identical guitars will sound slightly differently, as you can't build 2 guitars out of the exact same slab of wood.

So that leaves us with look and feel, and I find it totally valid, if people say that they don't like the look or feel of a certain wood type. Don't we all have our preferences?
Then again, there's a lot of learned response to this, we have come to expect a fret board to look a certain way. Either Maple, or some dark wood like rosewood or ebony. We are just not used to reddish looking Pau Ferro, or stripey ebony fret boards. If manufacturers keep using these alternative woods though, we will become used to those as well, and won't find them out of place anymore.

Do you think the kids will find fret boards other than Maple, (pure black) Ebony and Rosewood out of place, when they are all grown up trying to decide which guitar to buy? I don't think so. Unless of course we have taught them to dislike anything other than the three traditional fret board materials. Myths can be persistent sometimes. Youngsters have already learned that it's most desirable to have a real USA made Fender or Gibson, and I'm sure there aren't many young guitar players out there dreaming of his/her dream guitar made by *insert any lesser known boutique builder here*. Sooner or later every youtube guitar prodigy will get his/her first real Gibson or Fender, preferably even a vintage one. So that seems to be what real players play.

Irrational preferences about some types of timber for fret board materials will follow suit.

 

I have to go with this one

 

Every house doesn’t have a guitar in it?

 

And I didn’t know what Ovankol was until I bought that guitar.

 

I agree with you, on electrics, especially on Strat's, tone comes from the pickups and amp, body woods and neck woods make little if any difference. Case in point, I have played and heard some great sounding late 80's and early 90's Korean Squier Strat's that had plywood bodies.

 

CITES amended the treaty, to allow Rosewood on musical instruments.

 

We know this, but Fender isn't going back as far as we know, because rosewood is still much more expensive......I think we'll continue to see Pau Ferro on most Fender Mexico and Indian Laurel on Squier stuff....

 

I generally don't like the way PF looks, but that is an awesome fretboard.

 

I'm afraid you misunderstood my post.

This guy gets it.

Nah, I'll have to pass on that.

 

Yes but Pau Ferro is nice for playing and tone.

I like granadillo also very nice . Not to be confused with Armadillo .