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

[emperor_black]

I love the Flame Maple Top on my SL2HT...but whenever I look at it, I've always wondered, Why isn't one half a mirror reflection of the other? I mean, look at the picture below. Why dont the lines on one half match with the other half? I've seen guitars where the line are EXACTLY spaced out, yet there is a slight offset (either up or down) that makes a mismatch. Do they deliberately "mis-match" them? Is it more cool to have a mis-match?

Along the same lines, when the specs of a guitar says "book-matched" does it mean the lines will match?

[toejam]

Looks pretty normal and bookmatched to me. Here's the top of my old Hamer Special FM (now owned by Travis).

[emperor_black]

Nice guitar joe. So you're saying the SL2HT's top is already "Book matched"? I would have thought that when something says "matched" a line starting from left will continue all the way to the right with the book crease in the middle...

[toejam]

It looks like the line is the same all the way across, just one side looks lighter, the other darker. I think it's just the nature of the wood and how the stain takes to it. My old Carvin DC400 seems the same way. I don't know how the pic got crooked, though.


And a pic of a guitar I found online.

[audiophile]

I always assumed on one side you are looking into the precut slab and the other side is looking out of the slab (If that makes sense).
180 degree different perspective and typically the effect is inverted between sides when illuminated.

Very rarely (if ever?) have I seen bookmatched tops that one side mirrors the other (at least at the seam).
The nature of the bookmatch. Otherwise, you get a solid top with no seam.

[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

[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.

[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.

[thetroy]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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!

[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!

[emperor_black]

Great explanation Postal. Appreciate it !!