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I placed an order for a "5A Quilted Back and Side Set" from ------------ and received the following (pictured is one of the guitar back pieces). While the figure that was present may very well have shown up more were the wood finished or even rough sanded / planed (it looked to have been directly sent from the mill), I deemed it not worth the risk that this ugly duckling would shine up to look like a $250.00 set and sent it back. A month later, they are trying to send back the same set basically, claiming this is the best quality quilted maple. I'm not even sure I'd consider it quilted maple at all - as it appears to me to be more of a flamed figure.

The owner claims that the upper left hand picture is their top-of-the-line quilted. I had assumed that was an example of their fiddleback maple.

So, ranting aside, where would be a decent place to get ACTUAL good quality quilted maple?

(Edited, as months later, the owner of the company e-mails to apologize for an employee that no longer works there and gives me a full refund. Couldn't be nicer.)

Did you try LMII.com? RC Tonewoods (site sponsor)? Ken or John? Another possibility is to look at local hardwood stores. I have a place about 10 miles from me, OWl Hardwoods, that has some great stuff. You gotta pick it out of the bunch, but when you find something you like, it is great quality.....where I got my padauk, maple, and zebrawood.

You can try Fraser Valley --

http://www.fine-woods.com/quilt_drop_tops.html

Be aware the his grading system is his own and may not make sense, but at least his pictures are very revealing

Despite being in the Pacific Northwest, we're in the dry bit, so our local hardware / wood shops are pretty bleak - unless you want copious amounts of black walnut, then we're golden.

I was thinking of swinging by Gilmer Woods in Portland next time I was down there to see what they had, since dealing with Cook has left a bad taste in my mouth in regards to ordering guitar wood. Subjective grading means you don't really have any idea what you're going to get unless they picture every individual set.

I was actually down to tossing a coin between ordering from LMI and this place...

In the past I bought several times from Frazer Valley Woods Canada. Very nice maple and stiff Sitka. Reasonable prices.
Never had any problems there. He offers great pics of each pice of wood he sells.

good luck
Herman

Bruce Creps at http://www.notablewoods.com/ is a pleasure to work with. Your neck of the woods, too.

by the way, that image on the left doesn't look quilted to me either.

Logan,
Did you wet it?
Quited figure doesn't show as well as Curl when dry.

Good idea wet it down with a solvent and take a picture to post -- only then will the real pattern show up

That picture is actually wetted with distilled water...not soaked by any means, but it has a thin wipe. It was rough cut to the point where it actually looked like plain maple when it showed up.

Of course, there policy is if you sand it or put solvent on it, you can't return it.

Thanks for the recommendations. I will check them all out.

And I'm glad it's not just me that doesn't think the picture on their website is not quilted maple...