Welcome Tobin! I kind of doubt that you will find any one at this site that has used kauri as fretboard material. But maybe someone has read something on it. I read of a sofa made from it and it was $17,600+ US. From what I have read, the wood is durable, but does not fit the characteristics of woods used by Alembic for fretboard material. Since there are only 142 hectors left from the original 1.2+ million that originally inhabited New Zealand, and it is illegal to cut and mill one, it is not a wood one would tend to use much to try things out.
It was a great read on the Internet about these trees that can live to be over 2,000 years old. Especially the parts about how they use the trees felled naturally hundreds (thousands?) of years ago and sunk into the swamp and have resurfaced. These, and stumps left previously, are the woods available for sale, and from what I read, are more durable. Therefore, would be a better choice for a fretboard.
www.langcaster.com A good place to possibly get your question answered would be at the link above. I notice that he uses ebony fretboards. However, if anyone has used kauri for a fretboard, chances are he has, or knows someone that has. Hey, how come all his stuff is over 35,000 years old? Well, probably because there are more boardfeet of wood in a Kauri tree than any other tree on the planet!
(Message edited by poor_nigel on November 17, 2004)
