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Originally Posted by Daniel Kuryliak
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11-06-2013 07:08 PM
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I missed this earlier as it was in your quote of my post:
"Yes, I realize that quarter sawn neck blanks are a rarity because of the difficulty and the waste.
flamed maple, curly maple, ripple maple, fiddleback or tiger stripe maple is a rarity to begin with so if a sawyer finds it, they are definitely not
going to waste it. But some mountain sawyers do saw it as quarter sawn and the stabilty for neck use
is much better than flat sawn.
Michigan fiddle back maple as Gibson used to call it, does not come on every maple tree out there, so it is
very select and more expensive than non figured maple. My mistake on the dimensional lumber, I wasn't referring
to 2x4 dimensional lumber rather neck blanks."
Figured maple is not that rare and you find it in all kinds of stuff i.e. the molding and cabinetry in my house has some serious flame as did the maple floor in my old house. They don't always stop to cull the figured logs. It doesn't always make sense for them because they have to spend time doing that and they aren't going to make it up by charging a couple more dollars per board foot. Most mills and sawyers make their money the same way companies like Gibson do, by volume. That's why it costs so much to have outfits like Fender or Gibson do custom work. It interrupts their work flow, costing them time, which we all know equals money. Now I really don't understand where the confusion is coming from in regards to the grain orientation in a neck blank. There is no magic imparted to a quartersawn board. In an ideal world you would like to see the growth rings perpendicular to the plane of the strings. So your choices are to get a board that is sold as quartersawn that is some 4" thick (to accommodate the heel) which would have to come from an ancient and massive tree and cost a fortune. Or you could buy flatsawn stock in boards, laminate them if you want and turn them sideways. Both will get you the EXACT SAME results, growth rings perpendicular to the plane of the strings. That's the ideal but what I'm saying is that in actual practice it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.
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Originally Posted by jasonc
I enjoy my discussion with you and others on this forum...that for the most part has very knowledgeable people posting...
and that isn't always me.
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