Bound Round laminated Rosewood fingerboards? What does it mean?

I am totally puzzled by this,....http://www.fender.com/en-CA/products/americanvintage/american-vinta...

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Permalink Reply by Russell Vance on October 19, 2012 at 4:24pm

Fender do a couple of styles of dark fingerboards (as distinct from the maple boards) one being a slab board which we are all familiar with which has a flat surface glued to the neck and the radius formed on finger and fret side.

The second type of board used by Fender, in this case, is a single laminate board which is glued onto and follows a radius already cut on the neck. It looks like a thick veneer but is, according to some limited research, actually machined to conform. This attracts the name "round" and the "bound" is self evident. Couple of reasons for doing this apparently but suffice to say the practice has been around for some time now and is a "feature" on the models attached to your post.

Not a good idea if you are refurbing a fingerboard or re-radiusing a worn unit, especially with the rising tongue problem oft seen in old Fenders. The old ones I have done have turned out very thin at the heel end with little of the laminate thickness remaining after flattening and radiusing the board.

That's all I know. Rusty.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Verticchio on October 19, 2012 at 5:13pm

Rusty,

You & I have posted opposite opinions on the FB style.

Looking at the shallow 'smile' at the top of the FB at the headstock, I'm inclined to go with your description. A slab board would have no horizontal contour where it meets the headstock

So Kerry: Rusty is correct & I was mistaken (:

Good call Rusty(-:

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Permalink Reply by Paul Verticchio on October 19, 2012 at 5:04pm

Hi Kerry.

Here's my take on it:

Those terms were most likely born on Madison Avenue.

I infer that the "bound round" refers to the way the neck binding is in one piece from one side of the headstock to the other. This style of binding only appeared (until now) on 1965 J'masters. Given the rounded end of the FB, using multiple pieces of binding would look kinda goofy. Or.... it could refer to the rolled edges of the FB. Flip a coin for the correct answer(:

The "laminated" FB's most likely refers to the 'slab' style used by Fender as opposed to the bent thin veneer on later models.

These are really accurate replicas of the vintage Fender models, complete with all the undesirable (in a modern instrument) and "known problem" details. Let me elaborate... like the Tele's 3 saddle "un-intonateable" bridge, 7.5" FB radius, the Jag's & Jazz's terrible vibrato units, their cluster-mess of archaic switching options and their bridges which are the worst designed hardware in Fender's history.

You have to admit, those of us that work on electrics for pro clients have spent the last few decades correcting & minimizing those exact design flaws.

But hey...whether I like them or not; in this case they did a GREAT job of resurrecting the old & outdated.

Have a great weekend (-:

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Permalink Reply by Kerry Krishna on October 19, 2012 at 10:18pm

Russell, is it OK if I cut and post your answer onto the Collings Forum? And thanks folks!

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Permalink Reply by Kerry Krishna on October 20, 2012 at 12:45pm

Can someone please tell me how thick the actual fretboard is? That seems to be the whole question here...

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Permalink Reply by Russell Vance on October 21, 2012 at 6:03am

The curved laminated boards vary a bit from observation but greater than 1/16th and less than 3/32 inch is what I have seen and worked with. R.

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Permalink Reply by Russell Vance on October 21, 2012 at 6:00am

No worries, post away. I researched it from a number of reliable sources (and learned a few new things in doing so) and with the discrepancies normalized I posted the results. Regards, Rusty.