View Full Version : Help with figured maple choices
doublestop
Mar-30-2004, 5:06pm
I am having another mandolin built and need help in decribing the kind of maple that I would like for my back and rim. There is tiger maple and flamed maple, right? Or are there other choices. I know I am not looking for quilted maple. The mandolin I have now looks like this, but I am looking for more of a 3 dimensional look. Does anyone know what I mean and how would you categorize the attached photo. Tiger maple?
doublestop
Mar-30-2004, 5:08pm
Here's an after thought.....Does that 3 D look come from the shading. The mandolin in the photo is a solid color
sunburst
Mar-30-2004, 5:18pm
The 3D look comes from rubbed staining and/or some of the things in this thread (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=7;t=12393;hl=potasium+or+ch romate).
Keith Newell
Mar-30-2004, 9:01pm
This is hand rubbed and not shaded (burst).
Keith
This is quilted maple. BRW #27 (Last post of it)
There is also Bird's Eye. This is the best I can do....
My mandobanjo
Have a look at Frank Fords frets.com site. There is good explanation about FIGURE, fiddleback, birdseye, flamed, curly, quilted... in his Illustrated glossary.
Figure (http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/General/Glossary/Figure/figure.html)
Luthier
Mar-31-2004, 10:03am
Curly, fiddleback, flamed, and tiger are often times describing the same pattern as you have shown in your first picture. #Bird's eye is seen in the banjo resonator shown and quilted is seen in the mandolin back above the banjo.
Don
Spruce
Apr-02-2004, 1:28am
I think that 3D look you're going for can be a result of grain-orientation rather than figure....
The interlocking flames that I love to see in a back can be the result of skew-cut wood (grain like this: ////////), which displays the flame of quarter-cut wood combined with the rolling figure of slab-cut wood...
You see this a lot in Red maple cut on the skew (in quite a few Loars for example)...
A nice look in a well-figured tree....