View Full Version : Tilting grain at an angle on the back...
grandmainger
Feb-27-2006, 1:26am
Looking at Scott's new Kimble Mandola (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=15;t=32522), I had the following question come to my mind.
It seems that, for one-piece backs, a slight angle in the direction of the curl of the maple is quite sought after. I certainly find it very attractive. From previous threads, it looks as though such pieces are rather rare...
Would there be any major problems in tilting a "normal" curly one-piece back a few degrees (perhaps 3 or 4), where the grain direction wouldn't quite line up with the neck?
http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Germain
fatt-dad
Feb-27-2006, 7:49am
HERE (http://users.accesscomm.ca/muthmandolins/assorted.htm) are some examples of mandolin backs made from "off-quarter" sawn wood. The builder is Larry Muth, but I would imagine that others do this also. Hope that this helps. I find the "off-quarter" look interesting as well.
f-d
Spruce
Feb-27-2006, 11:06am
"Would there be any major problems in tilting a "normal" curly one-piece back a few degrees (perhaps 3 or 4), where the grain direction wouldn't quite line up with the neck?"
It just wouldn't look right, especially with quarter-cut wood...
Even slab-cut wood would look strange....
Slanted flaming occurs in some regions, and not others...
For instance, Bosnian maple is famous for it's tendancy to produce slanted flaming which many-a-violin maker loves, and yet in other areas (England comes to mind), it's next to impossible to find the same species with anything but flaming 90 degrees to the grain....
Weird...
Scotti Adams
Feb-27-2006, 7:02pm
...heres what Im after..Spruce...can ya help?...
Paul Hostetter
Feb-28-2006, 12:18am
Del Gesu: http://www.vanzandtviolins.com/images/vn78back.jpg
T&H Amati: http://www.celtic-lines.com/images/violin56.jpg
http://www.masterviolinshop.com/images/vuillaume.back.gif
Paul Hostetter
Feb-28-2006, 12:19am
http://users.erols.com/ostiano/Images/Araelback2002.jpg
Spruce
Feb-28-2006, 11:43am
"...heres what Im after..Spruce...can ya help?... "
Nope!
Sorry..... #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Here's a pic of a mandolin by Joe Cleary.....
Spruce
Feb-28-2006, 11:46am
Curly redwood....
Paul Hostetter
Feb-28-2006, 12:44pm
Bruce, I've never really tracked this, but is the angled curl an artifact of growing on a slope?
Spruce
Feb-28-2006, 1:02pm
I think it's genetics...
Man, I've seen one tree among all the hundreds of maple logs I've perused on the genetically-contained island of England that had slanted flaming, and yet in Bosnia quite a high percentage of the figured maples have this trait...
But who knows?
It's hard to prove what causes these things to happen....
Scotti Adams
Feb-28-2006, 4:34pm
Thanks Bruce....Mr. Ludewig will be starting my mando in the near future....I was hoping I could find something comparable to that.
Spruce
Feb-28-2006, 9:36pm
"....I was hoping I could find something comparable to that. "
For a variety of reasons which I won't go into right now, quartered Eastern Maple one-piece F5 backs with extremely nice figure and no worm-track are perhaps the most difficult pieces of maple to come up with on the planet, bar none...
Much more difficult to find than one-piece Bosnian, which can fetch 300.00 on the violin market...
That's life...
I've seen lots of maple like that here in Slovakia. Only a small percentage is perfectly 90 degrees. Try perusing SVS tonewood page, they have a pic of each piece of their maple on their webpage. They have one piece sets too. Their prices are copying prices of premium Bosnian maple as you cannot realy distinguish Bosnian from Slovakian or Hungarian as they grow within couple hundred miles...
The prices are too high IMO, as I knot that you can buy one REALLY large log of best quality maple in an auction for less than $1000...