hello,i have a question for all of you that have a Railboard!

i have it from a month...i playied it less of 12 hours...

i have only clean with index and thumb nail on the strings,
no others way!
and now i can see under the 3rd string ,the alluminum color!
(maybe the layer of chrome on it is too thin?)
what do you think about this photo?is it loosing the anodizing?

the photo:

Hey Tzappatore! Here is an informational video I made on the Railboard last year. The anodized aluminum is pretty resistant. I recall Emmett mentioning he used and eraser to remove the metal string residue. You can just wipe it away with your finger, but I suppose a rag or towel would be better.

You can just skip to 7:30 in the video if you don't want to hear my blah blah blah, I forgot this video was 9 minutes long.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5l0cpET11I[/youtube]

hello Gene,thanks for your reply...
i've seen your video 3-4 times in the past and it is great.

i have tried to clean the frets with fingers tips,nails,pencil eraser,pen eraser : nothing at all.
It looks like aluminum color.not brigth steel ,like in your video.

i think it is really difficult that the powder iron of the string it was so strong absorbed trough the anodization roughness!
(oh my english is so bad! )

also after playing,when i clean with index and thumb nails
on the unwound strings i can see green colored residual dirt .
(like the green fingerboard color,not dark gray iron oxide color ).

Now,if the chrome anodized is over on the aluminum
in 2-3 months i think ,will be frets damage(but i hope i'm wrong).

i also have much experience with lutherie,metall sience etc.,
and i suspect :
maybe aluminum fretboard not well cleaned after anodization .

( Now my money are over...i have worked for 10 years
to have the money for this(600 $ for import taxes) ,
in my the future : budget zero...
this was my last instrument , maybe my dream of a very
durable instrument it's over, but i hope i'm wrong ).

thanks Gene,you are very fine,bye !

Judging from the residue on my railboard, and how others have described removing the string dust, it shouldn't be that hard to get off. If you're also getting green dust off the strings, I would think ghat you may be right about it wearing through.

Have you tried contacting stick enterprises? I feel like they would be very willing to fix the issue if that is indeed a factory mistake.

hello , rabidwolverine ,thanks for you reply.
Today i have sent an email to Cambria...and now
i wait for her e-mail. at the time i continue this...
bye.

Continued from another thread:
I haven't had a chance to play mine yet because I'm still working, but I stole a moment or two to check out the heaviest playing areas on my Railboard. The only thing I could see was a little bit of light-colored residue that came off easily with my fingertips and my fingernails. There was no loss of color on the Railboard itself.

Thanks Gianni, for your email to Cambria with concerns about fret wear on the Rail tips of your new Railboard. I thot I'd reply here on Manny's forum because the subject might also be of concern to other owners of this new aluminum Stick model.

This is what I've found so far on all Railboards and earlier prototypes that I've continually played on. A silvery sheen develops on the most played Rail tips under the most played strings. At first I thot it was the hard anodized and dyed surface wearing thru at the tips with the softer aluminum showing thru. Then I gave it the best test I know of, that is, to "erase" the silvery discoloring with a pencil eraser, which has a very fine abrasive "grit". It worked every time and the original anodized color would fully return.

I wouldn't recommend using other erasers, however, because their grits are often much coarser (like the old whitish typewriter erasers) and could possibly scratch or slightly wear down the Rail tips.

Please try this test again, Gianni, just with a regular pink colored pencil eraser (not a "pen eraser"), and maybe rubbing a little harder this time. If your original dark green color doesn't come back on the Rail tips, then we'd both have a cause for concern and I'd do my best to make it turn out right for you.

Hard anodizing includes two other processes, including dying the anodized surfaces in various colors, then sealing in the dye. The natural hard anodized surface is microscopically porous, but only about one fifth as grainy as the glass bead "frosted" finish that was sandblasted before anodizing onto my small first run of 27 Railboards. The violin bow effect of vibratos over the frosted Rail tips is quite strong.

The last three runs with machined texture on the front surface between the Rails allowed me to bypass polishing and glass bead blasting, resulting also in smoother Rail tips. Because the anodized surface has its own texture, there's still some violin bow effect remaining, around a fifth as much as before.

I can imagine a condition where the nickel wearing off the strings settles deeper into the anodized texture and doesn't easily erase away. In such a case, the embedded nickel would hide the dyed color but not wear down the hard anodized surface. The Rail tip would then appear as exposed but would retain its aluminum oxide hardness.

So Gianni, I hope you're enjoying everything else about your new Railboard and that you'll give it more playing time before we decide its fate. If you chose to return it within the warrantee year we'd of course refund full value of your purchase and it's likely that the Italian customs office would return your $600. in taxes.

If the worst case comes true, there's another remedy. We could reattach your instrument to its CNC fixture via threaded holes under the truss rod channel and take down the entire front surface by about .020" to .050", in effect performing a "fret job". Then we'd strip and re-anodize all surfaces. There'd be no charge to you except for shipping, and there should also be no VAT charged to the repair. There are also other types of hard chrome and deposited plasma finishes.

All the Best, Emmett.

Hello , Mr.Emmett
I am really sorry to annoy you with this matter.But as i know
about the nickel dust from the strings ,that can be removed ,
i was a little worried when i discover that the original dark green color
doesn't come back on the Rail tips of my Railboard #6439.

And so i wrote in this forum to have suggestions to make a TEST,
but either Gene Perry and Greg Howard reply to me to use the eraser!
than i have tryied with a pencil eraser(too soft),than a ligth blue
pen eraser(also soft),than my fingernails,and in the last,i have tried
moving the strings accross the frets to obtain some nickel dust:NO at ALL!
and the Frets situation is : no variation at all !

BUT i'm not convinced about the loosing of anodization...(the worst case)
Maybe is a permanent nickel adsorbing (the best case),but i don't know.

Now i restart to play it,and if aluminium will be
in strings facing,it will corroded a bit in 3-4 months
(i think because of my really light touch).
this is the only TEST to know the situation.

But in the worst case(and i hope no),I was contrariate to re-send
the Railboard to the Stick factory in a warranty way ,
because italian mail is terrible in my opinion , and maybe it will be lost!

( Also UPS in Italy losts my address and phone number 6 times
in the Railboard shipping ! and i have to sent to the taxes office 2 times
my documents,ecc...in the last they was near to lost the Railboard!
And i can bet that they had also lost the warranty card , when i have
expedited it, than i would not to send the entire instrument!
too much fear , too much shipping cost ,
and i'm sure that they don't never give me back the 600$ in taxes. )

Then in the last (In the worst case...)
If i can , i would suggest (only if you can/want) to
send to me another fretboard structure only ,because i'm perfecly able
to reassembly/reset the entire instrument with the other parts ,
also i can pay the shipment
(that will be smaller than the entire instrument shipping 2 go and back
and because my money are over ! )
and at the time i can re-send(if you want)the other fretboard!
But this is the worst and ipotetic case(and i don't want to think it)

In the all cases i'm happy the same.
Mr.Emmett thank you very much for the Railboard,
it is really better than my imagination,I love it very much,
it's an incredible and Futuristic instrument ,the best of all i can imagine!
and also thanks for your book ,that contains the best(and all)
the ways to play it(and your sign! )
Thank also for this opportunity to talk with you,this is really great!
(sorry for my english)

Best regards,
Gianni.

Hi Gianni,

Another thing you could try is to wet your finger and just rub it on the fret to see if the string metal comes off.