Why doesn't the FMT's match either side?

[emperor_black]

o i c. Nice!!

[xenophobe]

Those lines do match up.... The reflectivity of the grain is that when one side is reflecting the other doesn't and it's exactly the opposite on the bookmatched half...

So each "light" stripe will match up with the exact corresponding "dark" stripe on the other half of the bookmatch.

The "light" and "dark" stripes are subjective to what direction the lighting is coming from and what direction you are looking at it.

[emperor_black]

From what I see, that is a perfect bookmatched top. The person who spoke of "positive" and "negative" grain is dead on correct. Each "line" on that Jackson appears to perfectly correspond to a lighter/darker line on the other side which is the result of seeing the grain from reverse angle. Where the lines meet in the middle, they should not look the same...the light/dark will run opposite.
Postals post is mostly right, except that this top matches nearly perfectly...I see nothing that is "off" as a result of cutting and sanding.

Here is a good example to illustrate what I'm talking about...the back of a Breedlove acoustic:

whatcha talkin about man? :ROTF: Those lines dont match on either side... the FMT on my guitar matches better than that and I was complaining.

[toejam]

I did wonder if the Carvin DC400 was a Veneer top, heavy black edging like that is a technique used to hide Veneer edges sometimes, I'm not a big Carvin guy though so I'm not sure about it!

The black edge is an option that can be added if you want a burst look to it.

[Rupe]

From what I see, that is a perfect bookmatched top. The person who spoke of "positive" and "negative" grain is dead on correct. Each "line" on that Jackson appears to perfectly correspond to a lighter/darker line on the other side which is the result of seeing the grain from reverse angle. Where the lines meet in the middle, they should not look the same...the light/dark will run opposite.
Postals post is mostly right, except that this top matches nearly perfectly...I see nothing that is "off" as a result of cutting and sanding.

Here is a good example to illustrate what I'm talking about...the back of a Breedlove acoustic:

[emperor_black]

Great explanation Postal. Appreciate it !!

[Shibs]

I did wonder if the Carvin DC400 was a Veneer top, heavy black edging like that is a technique used to hide Veneer edges sometimes, I'm not a big Carvin guy though so I'm not sure about it!

[Shibs]

Postal... I couldn't have stated it better! These are book matched tops, they are nice! Any better than that and I would have asked if they were a veneer top!

[Postal]

you're all about 180 degrees from right......


The Bookmatch is created with 1 single piece of wood that is 1/2 the width or more of the top..... It is then sliced in half and opened like a book as stated above. That is not 2 separate pieces someone "tried to match for a lack of wood" It is a true bookmatch.

The reason the rays dont line up is not because it wasnt glued properly. It is because it was glued while lined up as PERFECTLY as possible. However, after cutting the block some wood is wasted by the thickness of the blade used- then after gluing, the top must be sanded flat. It is the lost material in the cutting / sanding process that shifted the rays to be offset. The rays in the piece of wood almost never run perfectly straight up and down through the thickness of the block (from front to back). They run at random angles. Therefore, when cutting or sanding the location of the rays can get shifted like the examples above.

It is highly unlikey that you can cut and thickness sand a top like that and have the rays match because of this. The only time you see a "perfect" match normally, is when the manufacturer cheats and uses a thin bookmatched veneer top. Modern "true" veneers are not cut on a saw at all. There is no wood wasted in the cutting process. They use a specialized machine that swings the log over a large "razor blade" that has no kerf.

Next time you're in GC and see a "perfect" bookmatch, realise that it is cheapo veneer.

[shreddermon]

That top is definitely book-matched, but it looks like the alignment for the top and bottom pieces wasn't done perfectly. Looks like the bottom piece was shifted "up" just a bit - maybe 1/8th" or so - vs the top piece. Probably intentionally done, too.

Guitar builders sometimes do this for various reasons. Like they didn't have enough wood to cover the whole top otherwise or to "carve out" some imperfection in the wood that otherwise would've showed on the guitar's top.

Wild-ass guess on my part, but I wouldn't be suprised if that particular piece of wood otherwise had some kind of flaw or imperfection in the location where there's a gap between the lower horn and the neck. So, rather than show the flaw on the body, they scooted the lower piece up just a little bit and cut the imperfection out of the gap. What can you do? - mother nature isn't always exactly perfect in how she decides to make the pretty figuring in nice woods.

Most times, you can't notice these kinds of little builder techniques very much. But that particular piece of flame has the one wide piece of flame in the figuring back by the ST ferrules that makes it kind of obvious.

Not a big deal, IMHO. It's still a gorgeous guitar with nice figuring and colors.

[fett]

It's called book-matching because it's cut in half then "opened" like a book

Yep. The problem today is they don't have pieces of wood large enough to do it. What you guys are seeing are two pieces of wood, from different slabs?, trying to get a close a match as they can.

[thetroy]

It's called book-matching because it's cut in half then "opened" like a book

[D-EJ915]

Simply pput. When the flame top is cut it's cut half the size of the guitar. Then it's sliced in half and what results is the posative of the grain on one side and the negative on the other side. The lines do line up but your seeing two views of the same section of grain.
Gil

Yep, "book-matching" is simply cutting a chunk of wood in half and joining it at the center, it's not really "matching" at all, just a name.

[toejam]

Simply pput. When the flame top is cut it's cut half the size of the guitar. Then it's sliced in half and what results is the posative of the grain on one side and the negative on the other side. The lines do line up but your seeing two views of the same section of grain.
Gil

That makes sense. Positive side and negative side... two views of the same section.

[JACKSONFREAK]

Simply pput. When the flame top is cut it's cut half the size of the guitar. Then it's sliced in half and what results is the posative of the grain on one side and the negative on the other side. The lines do line up but your seeing two views of the same section of grain.
Gil