Can a maple fingerboard be tinted or painted to make it look like rosewood?

[BELA]

I would like to buy a Sterling by Music Man 5 string with rosewood or similar fingerboard. The problem is that I am lefty and there are only maple fingerboard ones for sale nowadays.

 

So the question is: can a maple fingerboard be tinted or painted to make it look like rosewood? Provided that it is not laquered, of course.

 

Thanks for any help

 

[Beedster]

In theory yes, double bass boards are often treated in this way, not sure how good it would look and how long it would last. I also think you'll find that all maple fingerboards wear a finish of some sort you would need to remove which might not be easy or satisfactory

[Baloney Balderdash]

Well, making an untreated Maple fretboard approximately the same color as Rosewood should be relatively simple and cheap, getting it to look like actual Rosewood would be a very costy and complicated affair that likely still would only last for a limited amount of time.

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[Dan Dare]

Many maple boards are lacquered, so that would need to be stripped if you want to stain it, which wouldn't do a lot for its resistance to wear. Removing every bit of it from around the frets will be time consuming and tricky. Paint will look horrible and will soon wear through in spots where you play most often. If you stain it, you will need to be very careful to prevent the stain from bleeding into the neck itself. All in all, I'd just embrace the maple look.

[Mottlefeeder]

Off topic, but how you asked how much would it cost to have a luthier replace the fretboard with a rosewood one?

David

[Andyjr1515]

Bear in mind the hypocrisy here - in that I have pretty much modded every bass and guitar I've ever owned        BUT: If it was a bass you already had, I would be inclined to suggest to try to learn to love the maple.  If it was a consideration of buying one and the look is more important than the playability or sound, I would suggest buying a different bass.

 

Yes, it's doable, but it is quite likely to end up looking like a dog's dinner.  As folks above have said, the surface at each fret position would need to be scraped or sanded down to the wood and, even then, there is no guarantee that the stain would soak in evenly.  And it would always look like rosewood-stained maple.  

 

Replacing a fretboard is quite expensive.  Having it done can be very expensive.  Decent rosewood is expensive in itself and then there is the fret slotting, fitting, levelling, recrowning and polishing and final full set-up (it is likely that the sit of the frets would be different).  I think I would be surprised if a commercial luthier would consider it for less than £300 and quite probably a fair bit more.  And it might not sound the same, and it might not play the same. 

 

And it would decimate the re-sale value.