Eastern walnut as a fingerboard material?

[Mac Walker]

Hello everyone, relatively new luthier here.
I'm currently challenging myself to make a reasonable sounding electric using only domestic woods, so here goes...
Has anyone here ever had any experience using walnut as a fingerboard material?
Considering it for a walnut/maple telecaster I am building, quartersawn of course.
I'm sure abrasion resistance won't be as good as a traditional fingerboard material, but what about tonality and stability in service?
I have seen a tele kit from Grizzly woodworking that has a walnut fingerboard, but other than this, I have never seen it used on an electric or acoustic.

[Bob Gaddis]

You can use it, but be aware that it is not as durable as rosewood, maple or ebony. Stability? No reason for it not to be if properly cured. Tonality? I think it's not that great a factor, especially on an electric.

[Russell Vance]

Bob, Umm, last time I listened fingerboard material on electrics made the same difference as those on pure acoustics - maybe even a bit more when they are cranked up for all the world to hear - I believe there is more to electrics than meets the eye and they constantly challenge me - otherwize I would make em out of plywood and my life would be easy. Rusty.

[Richard Smith]

Walnut has a specific gravity (density) between 4 and 5 compared to Ebony at .9 and Rosewood at 1.0. Therefore, it will not wear well.

[Kirt Myers]

Persimmon, dogwood or Black locust come to mind.

Cheers,
Kirt

[Rob Mercure]

While this is a bit dated not Osage Orange is one of the densest/hardest native woods and easy to find. It's native to the MS valley but widely planted in the east for brush fencing - in KY I've seen 60' trees 24" DBH pushed over and burned for housing development - some nices ones in Virginia's New River Valley also. Much harder than black walnut and less likely to split than dogwood and black locust - persimmon while in the ebony family has such a small ration of heartwood to sapwood that a 14" DBH persimmion will only have about an inch of heartwood (was one of my disappointments). Osage orange is kinda widely yellow when cut but ages to a rust color - not nearly as wild looking as some fretboard woods now used.

Rob