Let's talk about wood
By Frank H.
Originally posted on the Yellow Forum 08/13/06
As asked by Tony, "Wood Aficionado's - Can you elaborate and/or Show Pics that describe: Flame & Feathering when describing wood? Keep seeing these terms and have no idea what they mean exactly when looking at a piece of wood...Regards,
Tony
Hi
Tony, it's pretty much just like it sounds, if you can picture the visual image
of "flame" or feathering, it's that quality or visual aspect
represented in the woods figuring. Claro walnut can have that factor going,
English / French walnut can have that factor going as well. Here are some
examples:
This is a Tomahawk custom stock done by Mike Abernethy, great Flame /
Feathering:
Click to enlarge
Here is a stock Paul Bishop made for Carl (Thumper2), another great example of flame / feathering:
Click to enlarge
The
terms used for figuring in wood are pretty much "somebody's attempt to
describe what they see", pretty self explanatory but it does help to have
some examples to look at, so I'll post a few more up here. I LOVE nice wood,
Arnold Smith and Vlad B. and Carl (Thumper2) have Fantastic gorgeous wood
collections, many other folks on this forum as well. The descriptions people use
aren't as important as the "do you like it" factor so to speak, and
grading wood is definitely a variable factor, not set in stone, lots of personal
opinion...
I've got work projects that are going to severely limit how much "forum
time" I've got to be here but for now I'll take a moment to post up some
great photos before I go so to speak. Nicely figured wood can be hard to work
and can have "voids" or internal surprises when one is working a
blank, it's expensive to buy, but I love nice wood. This is "tiger
striping" or fiddleback maple (figured wood like this is often bookmatched
and used on the backside of fiddles), this is treated / dyed maple, bought this
from DaveG years ago and it's in new hands now:
Click to enlarge
This is what you could call "marbling", or simply a catch phrase like "highly figured". This is a Diana 60 I bought from Jim E. (thanks Jim!), and highly figured wood is "shown more" when the finish is more towards gloss than matte and when grain filling is done etc... here's an example of that:
Click to enlarge
Here's an example of gorgeous highly figured wood that isn't so simple to "categorize", this is marbled / figured / mineral streaked, "unique and gorgeous", this is a Walther LG55 Tyro I was lucky to buy (thanks Bill) and Vlad owns it now, this gun deserves 20 photos to do it justice but here's a great example of "several things going on at once" beautifully figured wood:
Click to enlarge
OK one more photo of Vlad's gorgeous 55 Tyro (and he's got many many gorgeously figured examples of amazing wood), this shows a figuring going in directions other than the grain, you could call this feathering or when in bands could call it a curl if it has a reflective character (called chatoyancy)
Click to enlarge
This next example one could simply call "figure in the wood" for lack of a better way to say it, or marbling, it's a figure not related to the grain that reflects and dances with the light (chatoyancy), oh and this is a good excuse to show AMAZING checkering work by Jan Kraner, this was made for Steve L.
Click to enlarge
When you hear the phrase "color in the wood", here's
a good example of that, I bought this from Mike Abernethy,
it's old walnut from India it seems, Mike bought the blank and there was old
"sanscrit" looking writing on the blank, he said it was hard as a rock
to work... Thanks Mike Abernethy, you're a true artist!
Click to enlarge
Arnold Smith and Vlad
have great examples of Mike's work, as do many other on the forum here. Very
part time for Mike, but dang is he good.
Paul Bishop as with the photo above of Carl's gun, wow, there's only one Paul
Bishop.
Here's another photo of "tiger striping", this is a Diana 75 I bought
from Jim E. years ago:
Click to enlarge
Then there is the "just outrageous" category, like the Jim Maccari myrtle thumbhole that I had for a while that Joe Brancato is the rightfully proud owner of now, here's an example of "wild figure", fantastic marbling, curl, visuals that change dramatically as you move the gun in the light, "wow". This gun also deserves 20 photo, even then it's nothing like holding it in your hands and moving it in the light. What a fantastic one of a kind piece this gun is, from end to end...
Click to enlarge
Here is a
Maccari TX, stock done by Mike Abernethy, when I bought the stock from Mike he
just said "trust me on this one", I bought it without seeing a photo
or anything. I was a bit happy taking this one out of the box LOL. Thanks Jan
Kraner for the trigger blade polishing and set-back and for the internal trigger
work, on this TX and my Pro Elite.
Several examples of "figuring", at the end of the day the descriptions
don't matter that much, it becomes kind of like trying to describe a sunset etc,
you do the best with the words you have, but the image is what the image is.
Click to enlarge
Great
wood rocks! OK, I'm getting back to work to afford more LOL, this stuff doesn't
come cheap! Have fun -
Frank H.