It had to happen one day ...

[Dave W]

I've inspected the fretboard on mine and no signs of any lifting. Does your fretboard leave your fingers dirty after you play it Uwe? Mine leaves dark traces on my fingers when playing it. Not overly noticeable, but there. When I first got it I thought it was dirty strings but it didn't go away after installing a new set. Not sure if I've even posted a picture of mine after replacing the Jazz pickups on it.

...

Obeche is light in color, it was dyed dark by Gibson. I'm guessing that's dye on your fingers.

[Highlander]

... Smells Like cheap Mean Spirit on the part of Henry J...

Scrap the board and go fretless...

[uwe]

I've inspected the fretboard on mine and no signs of any lifting. Does your fretboard leave your fingers dirty after you play it Uwe? Mine leaves dark traces on my fingers when playing it. Not overly noticeable, but there. When I first got it I thought it was dirty strings but it didn't go away after installing a new set. Not sure if I've even posted a picture of mine after replacing the Jazz pickups on it.

I've had no noticeable staining, but then I don't play it for hours on end and my hands don't sweat either (an age thing, I used to have real sweaty hands and my son still does, his sweat is so aggressive it ruins any fin pronto, all his instruments look vintage aged within a couple of months, the wood even rots away). Obeche is a light color wood so that board must be stained like hell. And if you - a a young man at the height of his physical prowess - have a bit more agressive sweat than I, then I can very well envisage it coming off.

I like the look of yours with the new pups, bridge and all, but did you change the pups for sound reasons or because you disliked the Jazz Bass look?

[Nocturnal]

I am old and less sweaty than I used to be too. I don't play this for more than 30 minutes at a time but it always leaves traces of the fretboard dye. Not like I dipped my hands in paint or anything, just enough that I notice it. I was told in the past that my sweat was highly alkaline so maybe that is why? Or that could be a bunch of crap that I was being fed, but my plucking arm leaves a nice smudge on most of my basses.

I bought this initially because I wanted an RD to modify, but the prices were going up and I didn't want to pay top dollar for a nice vintage one and gut it. I had seen a couple of the Standards on Ebay with Rio Grande Pitbulls and thought I wanted to try the same with two different pickups to give more tonal options. This was a good price so I bought it and started gathering parts. There is a Dimarzio X2NB in the neck and a Bill Lawrence EB50 in the bridge. Both have push-pull volume pots for coil splitting. The Dimarzio is very aggressive and more bassy than I expected, but I really like it. The Lawrence has a much brighter sound and really is a great sounding pickup. I like to use the split coil on the neck and run the bridge full on for a raunchy rock attack. I said I wanted this to be a "Junkyard Dog" bass that sounded mean and nasty, and it does. You can make it sound nice and smooth, but why would I? haha
I also had a new guard made, a kill switch replaced the input, and the jack was moved to the end like a Tbird, and added the Hipshot. This thing is a beast for sure.

[Dave W]

I am old and less sweaty than I used to be too. I don't play this for more than 30 minutes at a time but it always leaves traces of the fretboard dye. Not like I dipped my hands in paint or anything, just enough that I notice it.
...

That just shouldn't happen. I've played dyed ebony boards and never had dye come off on my hands. Shouldn't happen with any other wood. I don't know whether Gibson needed to put a sealer on it or use a different dye. Whatever, it wouldn't be acceptable to me.

[amptech]

While doing some spray gun research this summer, I read a couple of quite interesting discussions at a luthiers forum.
A guy there had been employed by gibson as a chemist, trying to set up new spray equippment or something. It seemed that
for a number of years (recently) they had much trouble changing various paint recipes to fit new automated equippment.
Not sure if that has got anything to do with dye, but at least it seemed to be very difficult to get the machines to operate properly.
He had to come back to the factory many times, to tune the equippment - and between tunings whole series of guitars had been shipped with faulty finish.

[gearHed289]

There is a Dimarzio X2NB in the neck and a Bill Lawrence EB50 in the bridge. Both have push-pull volume pots for coil splitting. The Dimarzio is very aggressive and more bassy than I expected, but I really like it. The Lawrence has a much brighter sound and really is a great sounding pickup. I like to use the split coil on the neck and run the bridge full on for a raunchy rock attack. I said I wanted this to be a "Junkyard Dog" bass that sounded mean and nasty, and it does. You can make it sound nice and smooth, but why would I? haha
I also had a new guard made, a kill switch replaced the input, and the jack was moved to the end like a Tbird, and added the Hipshot. This thing is a beast for sure.

I like it. Nice mods!

[Nocturnal]

Thanks Tom!

I had considered asking my luthier about sealing the fretboard with something. Would that do anything to strengthen the fretboard? Why the Hell would you a soft wood for a fretboard?

[Dave W]

Thanks Tom!

I had considered asking my luthier about sealing the fretboard with something. Would that do anything to strengthen the fretboard? Why the Hell would you a soft wood for a fretboard?

There might be a coating that would help wear resistance a little, but it won't do anything to increase stiffness or hardness.

Janka hardness tables

Note that obeche's hardness is only 408. That's much less than common American hardwoods and even less than many American softwoods. I can't figure out any legitimate reason for Gibson to use that.

[uwe]

"There might be a coating that would help wear resistance a little, but it won't do anything to increase stiffness or hardness."

Darn. That is not good news for a middle-ager like me. No wonder ointment then. 

[amptech]

"There might be a coating that would help wear resistance a little, but it won't do anything to increase stiffness or hardness."

Darn. That is not good news for a middle-ager like me. No wonder ointment then. 

We will have to wait for Epiphone to release a real 'professional' stiffness increaser!

[uwe]

I already see a whole realm of potential misuse for it!