anyone ever had a wenge fingerboard de-fretted?

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Buster Mudd

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I notice that Warwick uses wenge for all their fretted fingerboards,
but ebony for their fretless fingerboards. Anyone ever de-fret one of
their fretted basses with the wenge board? Any reason wenge would *not*
be a good choice for a fretless board? I'm aware of ebony's strengths
for a fretless board, so I understand why Warwick offers their fretless
basses w/ that wood, but I want to make sure there aren't any
catastrophic reasons why one wouldn't want to de-fret a wenge board.
(Basically someone offered me a stupid cheap deal on a used fretted
Warwick Corevette 4-string, but I have no need for another fretted
bass. However, if I could successfully have this one de-fretted it
would be impossible to pass up.)
 
If it were done properly ( I have seen a lot of people mess up perfectly good basses because they didn't know what they were doing) I don't see why not. I have seen quite a few fretless Fender basses that had the standard Rose wood fret boards on them. I will defer to the experts on the board as to the effect it might have on your tone.
 
I've got a corvette rockbass fretless with a rosewood board - that works fine - although I use flatwound strings. I've also treated the board with Tung oil which hardens it up a bit with no ill effects. Can't see why a Wenge board shouldn't be OK... but someone else might know better
 
JPT said:
Have never seen a fretless Wenge fingerboard before.
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I guess it will produce a lot of upper mids and highs.. Wenge is not a very practical type of wood for fretless fingerboards, since it crumbles of very quickly.
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That was my concern. Since MTB has done it I'm guessing it's not impossible, but I'm also willing to believe that Mike Tobias may have been more selective about the particular piece of wenge he used than Warwick would be when choosing the fingerboard for their lower-end fretted models.

Any more data points? Thanks.
 
Buster Mudd said:
However, if I could successfully have this one de-fretted it would be impossible to pass up
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For your information my luthier has made a fretless conversion on my Yamaha BBN5A by replacing the fretted rosewood with a selected ebony fingerboard without letting me notice any difference with a new one, really! He's one of the most famous italian artisans. Take a look at the final result or reach the luthier at his own website for any information . Hope this can help.
 
Buster Mudd said:
but I'm also willing to believe that Mike Tobias may have been more selective about the particular piece of wenge he used than Warwick would be when choosing the fingerboard for their lower-end fretted models.

Any more data points? Thanks.
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I don't believe Warwick seperates their Wenge by saying this piece sucks throw it into the vette pile. I think they have high standards for all their wenge necks, even the lower end fretted models. Although it probably wasn't selected to be used as a fretless board as you have pointed out.
 
Daniele

If you're going to have a de-fret, I reckon that's the way to do it! That's a great piece of work!

By the way... hope the weather's OK in Italy... I'm off to Venice tomorrow.

More damned tourists, eh!
 
saxonbass said:
Daniele

If you're going to have a de-fret, I reckon that's the way to do it! That's a great piece of work!

By the way... hope the weather's OK in Italy... I'm off to Venice tomorrow.

More damned tourists, eh!
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Welcome to Italy saxonbass!
The weather here in the south is always beautiful, like 25° to 30° but it isn't the same for the north in this very moment.. It's raining a lot.
Thanks for your compliments, but you better say them to the luthier, even if he didn't make a de-fret actually but an entire fretboard replacement.
 
Hi Daniele

Yes... I meant "de-fret" in the loosest sense - obviously it's a whole new board... but I suspect it's not the easiest thing to do!

Hope it stops raining in the north... at least it can't be raining as much as here... I'm in the middle of a huge storm... I expect it'll follow me down!

Ciao!
 
saxonbass said:
Hope it stops raining in the north... at least it can't be raining as much as here... I'm in the middle of a huge storm... I expect it'll follow me down! Ciao!
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Yeah, ye ol' british weather..
Enjoy Italy, then!
 
I remember reading in an earlier thread some months ago that trying to defret a wenge 'board might be a real nightmare, but I can't remember why. It seems like it had something to do about trying to remove the frets without tearing the fingerboard to shreds.

I'd talk to as many people as you can before going for it.
 
I'd say Dragonlord has the right advice.

If you really want a fretless wenge board, the custom shop could advise if it is a good idea or not.
 
Oil Can said:
If you really want a fretless wenge board, the custom shop could advise if it is a good idea or not.
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Great idea guys, thanks. I'll post here if I get a response from Warwick.
 
Well, I *still* haven't heard back from the Warwick custom shop. But 2 different luthiers (including Mike Lull) have told me they do NOT recommend de-fretting a wenge board, as the wood is not robust enough to tolerate de-fretting. So there goes that idea.
 
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