Benefits and characteristics include:

– Standard size blanks for minimal tooling

– A friendly tooling matrix material that is an ideal medium and easily toolable to fit the board while avoiding contact with core materials

– Low-friction surface tooling mediums that have no grain to blowout and may be easily dressed with standard scrapers, files and sandpapers.

– No grain nor other hazardous discontinuities to allow for chippage or blowouts

– Supplied with the proper minimum standard of relief

– Side walls are provided with the proprietary Sound Composites tooling matrices, insuring that the side walls may be scraped and trimmed to finished relief and width without contacting nor exposing the internal carbon fiber re-enforcement.

– Outstanding durability and wear-resistance: intermittent redressing and periodic replacement are no longer an issue

– A stable fingerboard surface: there is no swelling or movement on the board surface due to changes in humidity and/or temperature.

– Supplied with a 0.025” maple veneer on the back ‘glue’ surface to allow for use of hyde glue. Otherwise Tight Bond is suggested.

 

Sound Composites has developed carbon graphite fingerboards that combines excellent tone generation, easy finishing and impressive durability with a natural look and feel.

1) The boards are provided within the classic standards of size and relief. There is a width of tooling material on the sides and at the ends of the board that can easily be tooled to blend the boards with a particular instrument if required. Sound Composites places the structural core within the board so that luthiers will avoid touching abrasive carbon fiber and other internal materials.

2) The minimum standard for relief is put into the board when initially produced. The low friction tooling medium is uniformly consistent, resulting in easy dressing of the board surface. Since there is no grain, there isn’t any blow or chipping when properly working the materials. Standard scrapers, files, and sandpapers (wet as appropriate) are suggested for all surfaces. Using standard hardwood-tooling dust evacuation techniques is suggested for working these small particle size, inert mediums.

3) These fingerboards offer outstanding durability. Due to their low-friction surface, intermittent redressing is not necessary.

4) The stability of the fingerboard surfaces insures that no buzz-producing surface movements develop from grain swell due to fluctuations in humidity and temperature.   Luthiers routinely have instruments with wood boards returned within 6 months of initial fingerboard dressing and at other times, to have emerging inconsistencies removed. Such redressing is not needed with Sound Composites Arcotech fingerboards.

5) The fingerboards may optionally be provided with a 0.025” maple veneer on the back glue surface to allow for the use of traditional hide glue. For boards without backing, an aliphatic resin such as Tight Bond is highly suggested.

6) Sound Composites Arcotech fingerboards have a smooth, low friction surface for ease of playing. Players find that instruments with Sound Composites boards are very comfortable in the hand and to the touch.

7) Sound Composites fingerboards contribute to high quality tone. This is due to the predicable consistency and transparency of the carbon-based materials.

8) All classic styles of Sound Composites Arcotech fingerboards are traditionally good-looking, due to the soft, lustrous quality of the surface. Using 0000 steel wool or 600/800 wet/dry sandpaper achieves this result. The average eye often thinks that Sound Composites Arcotech fingerboards are made of high quality Ebony due to the similarity in aesthetic.

In essence, Sound Composites Arcotech fingerboards contribute to high quality tone production. This is due to the consistency of the material surface, coupled with the tremendous ability of the ‘tonally filtered’ carbon fiber to move sonic information through the neck beam. Sound Composites has essentially developed mediums that combine excellent tone generation with easy tooling and impressive durability to produce products with a natural look and feel.