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I happened to catch this vid.....It's Geo.Gruhn describing one of Clapton's guitars Gruhn's is offering for sale. He describes it as having a rosewood f/b. Someone in the comments also questions this .....Did GG make a mistake ?...Sure looks like ebony and GG sure knows the difference, I'm guessing.
( no affiliation etc etc )....
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12-26-2020 12:59 PM
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It looks overwhelmingly like rosewood to me.
I find the odd/misinformed part to be saying that “this model” had a rosewood board while the normal CES had ebony.
That is not a distinction that is consistent with the actual guitars.
We can hope he meant to say something like that this particular guitar has a rosewood board, and this happened now and then in the mid 2010’s with several examples of custom shop arch tops that we normally expect to see with ebony boards.
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In 2011, the US Government raided Gibson guitars and took all their Ebony. For a few years after that, either Rosewood or Richlite were used for L-5 fingerboards, IIRC. Perhaps this guitar does have a Rosewood board. Epiphone, in their NY heyday used Rosewood for their fingerboards on their high end archtops, so there is nothing "cheap: about using a rosewood board. A Rosewood board on an L-5 would not scare me away from the guitar in question, it may have a very warm, pleasing tone (Ebony boards do brighten the tone a bit). Paying many thousands of dollars extra simply because Clapton once owned it would be a deal killer for me. YMMV
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Not surprising at all to see good quality Rosewood on that guitar. Rosewood has a character that's different but in no way inferior to ebony and on a custom instrument he may have known what he wanted well enough to want the feel of rosewood which certainly the vibe and feel he knew from the strats and 335's he's played.
Rosewood has also been used on stock L-5 s over the years. Not common but not unheard of.
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I think you charge more for a collectible when you pronounce “provenance” as he did late in the vid. “Proe-vuh-NONCE”, that is a new one to me - from the French quarter of Nashville I assume.
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Beautiful guitar. I wonder what the markup might be for a guitar owned by a generational player.
BTW With father time moving on, I have noticed musicans selling off equipment and song catalogs. Bob Dylan comes to mind immediately. With streaming, Jimmy Page has been fighting to retain residual payments for artist.
Times are a changing.
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I believe rosewood is more resistant to humidity changes than ebony.
Last edited by Woody Sound; 12-26-2020 at 06:49 PM.
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Originally Posted by Woody Sound
Look at table 3-6 here.
https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/f...tr113/ch03.pdf
Compared to Indian Rosewood, both listed species of Ebony move far more with changes in moisture. The table specifically addresses shrinkage only, but in practice the swell/shrink as a function of changing moisture content of all types of Ebony when used as a fingerboard is noticeably more than that of Indian Rosewood.
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Was / is there a WesMo fingerboard standard ?
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That’s very interesting. My most stable guitars by far are my 1940 L-5 and 1980 Les Paul Custom, both with ebony fingerboards. Originally Posted by Bezoeker
That said Gibson also used rosewood on many post war L-5s and Super 400s.
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Well lots of variables here, including what we mean by stable. Originally Posted by ThatRhythmMan
The table shows shrinkage as the wood dries, but only on the radial and tangential axes.
If we talk about stability as the possible need for a seasonal truss rod adjustment, that generally comes from a differential of swell/shrink of the neck wood vs. FB wood on the longitudinal axis.
The movement along the longitudinal axis is, as you’d figure, very very small.
But in the rather critical situation of a long skinny guitar neck with the weight of a modest size human being in string tension yanking on there, the tiny movements and the difference between the neck and FB wood, can make for a neck that needs seasonal adjustment.
And if you fiddle with thousands of guitars in a seasonably changeable climate, it sure does look like ebony FB guitars need more tweaking.
But that does not mean that all (or even most, or even many) guitars with ebony FB’s are unstable in a problematic way. Some are amazingly rock-solid.
In my opinion, you notice stability issues more along the radial/tangential with ebony as a matter of fret ends protruding and even pushing binding away under very dry conditions.
Get those fret jobs done in February, not August (assuming very dry winters and humid summers).
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I won't go into the details about why, but at one time my guitars were unavoidably left in a pretty dry indoor winter environment for several weeks. The extra wide ebony board on my 10-string classical shrunk so much that the fret ends poked out the finish on the side just enough to scrape against my hand.
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This one from '48 has a rosewood board. I cannot tell the difference when playing it.
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What makes it look overwhelmingly like rosewood ? Maybe it's not the darkest black, but ? Can rosewood actually be black, or would that require treatment of some kind ? Originally Posted by Bezoeker
Thx.
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My inner geek is quite excited. Thank you. Originally Posted by Bezoeker
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Hi Dennis, Originally Posted by Dennis D
To me, the FB on the guitar in the video has the color and grain variation of Indian rosewood. But that is just what I see looking at the iPad. You certainly may have a more accurate view of the FB appearance.
Rosewood dyed darker, or even to black, has certainly been done - but the grain structure is notably different than ebony, so you can still tell.
The FB in the vid looks completely undyed and completely Indian rosewood to me.
Off topic, but of course now we see gray streaked ebony very often as well.
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As an FB material Rosewood is fantastic. I am not dumping on it in any way.
Same for ebony, richlite, wenge, torrefied maple, etc.
Lots of absolutely fine ways to get the job done.
EDIT: My iPad changed “torrefied” to torpedoed.
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Not that he's infallible but I'm sure Gruhn has seen enough Indian rosewood in his day to be able to spot it.
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Originally Posted by wintermoon
I agree......The 'rosewood' got my attention because I've never heard any mention of WesMo's having been produced with FB's in any material other than ebony....
And spec listings of sold units etc I've found so far all mention ebony only.
Can this be confirmed anywhere ?
Thx
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Other than a few yrs immediate postwar when they used rosewood I've never heard of anything but ebony on L5s until this thread, just that recent run of richlite.
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During the wood raid fiasco period they even did some Les Paul Customs with rosewood FBs.
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So when I was around 13 years old 1970, Iuse to go to N.Y. City to 48th street music row. We Buy guitars had Eric Claptons 1963 Firebird 1 for sale. They were asking $1100 at the time. I thought they were crazy!
But what is valuable nowadays is name associated with my generations heroes.
I was rarely taken by who owned the instrument as far as extra added value. But I will admit I wouldn't mine owning Claptons Brownie, Bloomfeilds Sunburst L.P. or Albert Kings 1958 Flying V.
That said, I'm glad E.C. donates the proceeds to charity. And he like Bruce Springsteen and a few others channel their fame to help others!
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