Duolian fretboards

[Michael Messer]

I have deleted the conversation about fretboards from the Main Street section of this forum, as it was not anything to do with the thread about MM guitars.

Before commenting further about early Duolian fretboards, I need to clarify what Dave King said about them. Ebonized maple is something I have been aware of, but I did not know until now, exactly what it is.

I'll come back to this when I know some more.

Shine On
Michael,

[conehead31]

Apr 20, 2008 23:03:08 GMT Michael Messer said:

Before commenting further about early Duolian fretboards, I need to clarify what Dave King said about them. Ebonized maple is something I have been aware of, but I did not know until now, exactly what it is.

Ebonized maple is exactly what it sounds like: maple treated with black stain in order to make it look like an ebony fingerboard.
This was common practice in the 20s and 30s.
You'll find a lot of Oscar Schmidt Stellas with the same type of ebonized maple fingerboards.

The dye used by National would eventually erode some of the fingerboards as it reacted chemically with the wood, altering its cell structure. The maple would soften and turn into wood pulp. Maybe this is what you've mistaken for "cardboard" fingerboards on early Duolians. National NEVER used anything remotely resembling cardboard for Duolian fingerboards.

[Deleted]

Could the "cardboard" Michael referred to actually be some early form of compressed wood fibre composite, like hardboard. I imagine this could look very much like cardboard after 70 plus years of degradation. I'm sure it would crumble and turn to dust. I have no firsthand experience of this, it’s just a thought.

[Dave King]

Michael has asked me post something on this subject.

Its just about impossible to claim that National "NEVER" did one thing or the other. We wern't there.....


I have the fretboard in question here with me now it IS indeed made from some form of compressed cardboard. The instrument it came from has the serial Number C509

This instrument had not been apart since it was made, untill I replaced the fretboard.

Dave King

[growler]

HI
I do not want to deviate from this thread , as interesting as it appears to some people , but many years ago ( 1961 to be exact ) I was given an " Elvis Presley " signature model guitar which featured a box fitted to the lower end of the fret board and when you pushed one of the buttons down on it , it miraculously made a chord for you. What amazes me , even to this day , is the whole guitar, even the fretboard was constructed out of .......... Plastic !

Regards Growler

[Michael Messer]

conehead31 - I like your name - it's too easy Thank you for your comments. Dave King does know his stuff and has seen this a few times. He has worked on more Nationals than anyone else in the UK. I am not in a position to argue the point as my knowledge of woods and how they react with certain chemicals over many decades is I admit, somewhat limited! I am however interested to pursue the discussion as Dave has commented about early Duolian fretboards on more than one occasion.

Shine On
Michael

[conehead31]

The sad thing is that I actually am a conehead, when I was born the doctors had to give me a good solid tug with foreceps, apparently I was not to keen to enter the world. So my head is actually a little flat on one side. I do not look forward to going bald!

I still suspect that this "compressed cardboard" is actually disintegrating maple in the final stages of decay. Interesting that Duolian C509 was mentioned. I have one with a lower C-series serial number (low C300s) and one in the low C500 numbers and they both have a conventional fingerboard. As did the four different Duolians in the high C400 and mid C500 numbers that I've owned over the years in the past. I have a hard time visualizing the neck attachment screws seating in "compressed cardboard" but a picture is worth a thousand words.

I'd love to see a photo of this "compressed cardboard" anomaly, though like I said I've seen ebonized maple take on the look and texture of waterlogged cardboard as a result of reaction with the "ebonization" dye.

[Dave King]

Hello Conehead31

Ill be sending Michael some pictures of this later in the day. I find your comments about the Maple fretboards interesting. Ive been replacing these for sometime now oweing to the fact that over 70 years they become completely useless, pretty much the same as an ebony one that has had no care over the same time. The red bean ones seem to last a lot longer.

I'd guess this fret board was some sort of try at a cheaper alternative ? after all National where inovators in a number of ways.

Who are you by the way ? The name conehead31 doesnt ring any bells (or cones come to that). And the resonator guitar world being quite small,,,,

Dave King

[Michael Messer]

Hi again conehead31, Snakehips, Fred & others who were questioning the comment I made about Duolian fretboards.

Here is the fretboard of National Duolian - C509 - this guitar and its fretboard had never been touched until Dave worked on it. So this fretboard is a factory fitted item.



I will be very interested to hear your thoughts on this photo.

Shine On
Michael

[fredkinbom]

Hi Michael - very interesting!

Just to clarify - I did not question what you said, I was merely surprised to hear this and I am curious to learn more about old Nationals. My old Oahu student lap guitars (I've had two) both had what looked like "ebonized" fretboards made of wood and I thought they were as cheap as cheap got back then. Maybe it is easy to forget that Duolians, considering the prices they go for now because of "blues legend mojo", were National's budget guitars. (I'm glad the blues legends stayed away from the New Yorker lap steels - they were twice the price of a Duolian back in the 1930s, and now I bought some for a fifth or less of the price Duolians fetch today .

Back to fretboards and over to the experts!

Cheers,

Fred

[Deleted]

That’s a very interesting photo. The fretboard certainly appears to be made from some form of laminated, fibrous material which must be manmade (I doubt if a natural material would delaminate like that). I’m not expert enough to say with any certainty what it is. It could just be ebonised plywood that has reacted to the dye as conehead31 suggested. It could be pressed wood pulp, an early resin or perhaps even linoleum. I really hope it doesn’t contain anything nasty, like asbestos.

[Dave King]

Ebonizing will only soak into the surface of the timber if your using inks or wire wool and vinigar. For it to go any further in you need to use a Vacuum treatment at about 12bar. And that wouldnt be 100%. This fret board is black all the way through and evenly black.

[Deleted]

That's a good point, Dave. I guess that rules out the ebonised wood theory. Another thought; didn't Gibson use some kind of black fibre board for their headstock overlays at some point (I seem to remeber reading that they did in a book some years ago). Could it be a thicker laminated version of that?

[Dave King]

Gibson certainly did use that fibre board and still do as far as I know,,, and yes from what I can make of it its exactly the same material.

[Marc Schoenberger]

What you have there is a classic example of the early Duolian Phonolic fretboard. They were used for about a year and all started to fail within that time. Phonolic is made from thin sheets of paper and epoxy pressed together. it was made in large sheets and the fretboards with fret slots were stamped out. they also started out with special no tang frets that they either slid in like Fender or pressed in from the top.Later they used regular fretwire with tangs before stopping altogether. The problem with the Phonolic was that the epoxy kept drying and the fingerboard along with the neck would curl up... Volia! warped necks. I have replaced zillions of these and when you get it off the neck the fingerboard actually curls into a giant U. How do you spot one... well besides seeing a warped neck... the Phonolic boards look grey and were sanded with 80 git paper to give it a grain like ebony. In the next phase of Duolian disasters we have the dyed maple boards. National did two types of dyed boards. One, like most style O's were dyed or more truthfully, stained on the top. the other was the full impregnation of dye .... aye .. and those are the nasty ones! these can always be spotted by the long cracks especially where the screws are. and if they are not cracked on top .... underneath the fingerbord flap they most certainly are.

......and lastly a(shameless?) plug for me.... I can take the warp out of the neck and replace these boards with out touching a speck of the original finish or doing overspray the result is a seamless fix that looks natural complete with lovely rolled edges to the fingerboard that feel right... really the end result is the best of both worlds a great Duo with a nice ebony board and lovely new frets

Cheers!
Marc Schoenberger
www.nationalguitarrepair.com