BIO-LITE BOARDS:

OFFER ALL THE BENEFITS OF BIO-BOARDS WITH A
CHAMBERED EMBODIMENT, RESULTING IN A LIGHTWEIGHT FINGERBOARD.

CARBO-CORE BOARDS:

INCORPORATE THE WELL-REKNOWN
NON-WEARING BLACK MOSES FINGERBOARD SURFACE WITH A CHAMBERED EMBODIMENT.

Moses, Inc., manufacturers of carbon graphite neck and stringed instrument products, is proud to introduce the new and revolutionary ‘BIO-BOARD’ electric guitar and classical stringed instrument fingerboards. These environmentally sound, lightweight fingerboards combine the finest properties of both traditional wood and cutting edge carbon graphite traditions, and incorporate bio-fibrous cellulous materials. Moses Classic, Bio-board, Bio-lite and Carbo-core Fingerboards allow for use of traditional tooling and application techniques with great results.

Advantages include:
The boards are provided in standard size blanks for minimal tooling. The tooling matrix material can be easily worked to fit the board while avoiding contact with core materials. Boards are supplied with the proper minimum standard of relief. The low-friction surface tooling mediums may be easily dressed with standard scrapers, files and sandpapers. The fingerboards offer outstanding durability. Intermittent re-dressing and periodic replacement are no longer required. The fingerboard surface is stable. There is no swelling or movement on the board surface due to changes in humidity and/or temperature. The boards are supplied with a 0.025” maple veneer on the back ‘glue’ surface to facilitate the use of traditional hide or other adhesives. These 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 vibration through the neck beam. Moses Carbon Graphite has essentially developed mediums that combine excellent tone generation with easy tooling and impressive durability to produce products with a natural look and feel.

Ebony was chosen for use as the premier, preferred fingerboard surface for
classical stringed instruments in proceeding centuries due to its
consistent hardness, tight grain, and even coloration. More recently,
ebony has been used as the top fingerboard choice on the modern electric
stringed instruments.

In using ebony for this purpose, instrument builders and repair people
have re-enforced the perceived top value of this wood to luthiers and
musicians for generations.

Due to its slow growth pattern, ebony, along with other hardwoods, has
been over-harvested through deforestation. This has resulted in an
increasing cost for wood of similar quality. Larger top quality pieces of
ebony are becoming increasingly hard to acquire. One result is that
standard ebony upright bass fingerboards are becoming less thick.
Additionally ebony is being supplied with coloration and grain "blemishes"
as well as provided prior to being fully dried. This results in cracking
and warping.

Whereas Brazilian Rosewood is no longer legal to import into the U.S.,
some other exotic hardwoods are now being used as replacements for ebony
in limited production situations. However, none of these are available in
sufficient quantities to be used as a true replacement in large-scale
commercial manufacturing.

In the current economic environment, there is a race to produce good
quality products at increasingly moderate cost. Competitive manufacturing
has resulted in the use of processes and machinery with tight dimensional
tolerances and continually improving surface qualities. At the same time,
most manufacturers continue to provide the fingerboard playing surface out
of ebony.

Ebony is not only susceptible to warping during instrument production, but
also to swelling throughout and in isolated areas throughout its surface.
This results in a need by players to have the surface periodically
re-finished. As the fingerboards are re-tooled, they become less thick
and weak, and are eventually replaced. Thus, whereas advances are being
made in many aspects of production, this important performance surface has
yet to be fully addressed.

The industry has to date propped up the image of ebony as the top wood
despite its inherent durability and increasing availability problems. In
that other woods have been noted for centuries as being less suitable and
desirable for the fingerboards, producers have essentially boxed
themselves in. It is difficult to suddenly convince musicians that the
more normal and available woods previously considered unsuitable are now
the best choice. It is our opinion that making move to a completely new,
technically superior, sonically transparent and aesthetically pleasing
material is a cleaner transition.