Mulga – Dressed – Fingerboard – 2 sizes

Dressed mulga fingerboard blank. 15×72×800mm. Acacia aneura — dense, dark, glass-smooth finish. Standard 6-string fingerboard width. Sold per piece.

The Australian fingerboard timber most players mistake for ebony. Mulga — Acacia aneura — dense, oily, dark, and dressed to a true reference face. Built for fret slots and a long playing life.

What it is. Inland Australian acacia from the arid woodlands of central NSW, Queensland, and South Australia. Heartwood deep chocolate to near-black with occasional fine figuring, density in the medium-grade ebony band, and natural oils that carry through the section — the reason it wears well under fingers without a top coat.

What you’d make with it at 15×72×800mm.

• Six-string electric or acoustic fingerboard — standard width, scale lengths to 25.5″
• Classical or nylon-string fingerboard where ebony tradition meets local supply
• Mandolin or bouzouki fingerboard, scaled within the 800mm length
• Inlay stock for a contrasting dark accent against pale timbers

Working notes

• Density: ~1,100 kg/m³ — very dense, sinks in water, sits in the ebony-equivalent band
• Hardness: ~11 kN Janka — among the hardest timbers in commercial use, holds fret slots cleanly
• Grain: Tight, interlocked, fine texture — radiuses smooth, holds detail under sharp scrapers
• Surface: Supplied with a true reference face — ready to mark out fret slots, radius, and bind
• Working: Demands sharp tooling — carbide bits, freshly stoned chisels, scrapers over planes for the final pass. Glues with epoxy or fish glue; oils can resist PVA
• Finishing: No top coat required — a light rub of lemon oil at string-change is plenty

What luthiers say about it. Australian builders working with Mulga since the 1980s have consistently reported fret-wear closer to ebony than to rosewood — the species sits on most local steel-string and classical makers’ shortlists as a domestic alternative.

The stack it came from. Mulga of this dimension takes time to dry without checking, so the boards we hold have stabilised over years before being dressed. Once it goes, the listing closes.

References. Species reference: Acacia aneura — Wikipedia. Browse more: our Mulga stock. Also see: our Luthier Timber range.