describing figure in Maple

[tippie53]

Flamed and quilted are two different things. The further off quarter, the less pronounced flame will be, all other things being equal. Therefore, flamed material should be dead on quartered to get the value available. Quilted is the opposite, it is best at absolutely flat sawn. I have some really great quilted material on hand, but I will never build an acoustic with it as it is incredibly unstable. It does what I call potato chipping, which means it distorts in 3 dimensions like it's namesake. I cannot recall ever seeing a top end acoustic made from quilted material, and that does not surprise me at all.
this is a credited to Bruce Sexauer and http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/
This was posted on the UMGF and I think it was of interest for you guys .

[Herman]

Thanks John,

In my little expirience maple can be very different from tree to tree. It can be quite soft or very very hard.

And after flattening the wood very carefully, sometimes the figure shows though the (thin) finish probably because of the different hardness of the light and dark parts of the piece.

Another thing is that a luthier-friend of mine says he never uses flamed maple for a neck. He says it is too reactive. When you have temperaturechanges (on stage), it forces the guitar out of tune all the time. And keeps you tuning. Opinions on that?

Herman

[tippie53]

I don't like to use any figure on a neck. Maple also has a number of species . Most are considered hard or soft . Also where it goes on the mountain and soil condition can come into play.

[Darryl Young]

Wow, I sure love the look of the Quartersawn Quilt!

I don't have an answer on using flamed maple for necks. I've seen it on a lot of Mandolin necks but they are short in comparison to a guitar neck so not an apples to apples comparison.

I'm glad this thread came up. I've considered using figured maple on a square neck resonator I'm working on and I've also considered using figured mahogany on a 12 fret, Martin short scale neck on the 00 sized guitar I'm building for my daughter. Not that I've read John's remarks, I giving this more thought. Would you not use figured wood not matter the species? Does it matter if it's a 3 or 5 piece laminated neck as opposed to a 1 piece neck?

There is significantly more material than needed on the neck of a square neck resonator and it is a 12 fret body join and roughly a 25" scale. Think figured maple is inappropriate? Does this change if using a 2 piece neck (or 3 or 5 piece)? Was hoping to use the figured wood.

On the 00 guitar, think I should avoid figured mahogany on a 5 piece, 12 fret neck using a Martin short scale? It's not a big issue if I don't use figured wood here.......just thought it would look nice.

[Tony_in_NYC]

Taylor, Gibson, Martin and Somogyi have made quilted maple guitars.
Here is a pic of the Somogyi
And the rest can be found here:
http://www.dreamguitars.com/sold-guitar ... jumbo_325/
Here is a Martin D-40QM (QM stands for? Quilted Maple!):

I will let you all search for pics of the Taylors and Gibsons.

Rick already posted his quilted beauty above. Pretty high end stuff, no?
I think the main consideration you need to make is the piece of wood you are working with. If you have a nice quilted set of maple that wont lay flat no matter what you do, you might not want to build with it. If you have a beautiful quilted maple set that is very stable, why not build with it? I would not want to build with any wood that is not flat and stable, regardless of figure. The point is, if the wood is suitable for a guitar set, use it. If it is better suited to an art project entitled, "Wooden Potato Chips" stay away.

[kencierp]

As with most 1/4 sawn wood -- the 1/4 sawn Curly Maple is stable and preditable, just make sure it have been seasoned and dried properly. In my top two or three best sounding guitars (to me of course) is Alex Degrasi's Custom Quilted Maple Lowden -- matter of fact they (Lowden) now sell them as a signature model.

BTW Rick that is a stunning instrument!