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Old 01-03-2019, 10:53 AM
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Mark Hatcher Mark Hatcher is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Green Mountains
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Default Joining the Back

I thought I'd write a few things about joining a fiddleback set. First, it's important to get a clean fit between the two sides. A window comes in handy for checking that:



With this much figure it really shows how well you line up the sides. There's a problem doing this though. Flamed figure is a series of peaks and troughs as reflected by the wood grain actually rippling up and down. When you book match the two back pieces where there is a peak one side of the joint there is a trough on the other. Now if you work the light and view angle you can make them line up fairly well like this shows:



Now without moving that penny and changing the viewing angle a picture of the exact same area appears to be mismatched:



So even though the woods are perfectly matched the appearance of the match is a moving target!

A reasonable solution to this is to use a center graft which puts a little space between the two sides of the back and greatly reduces this effect.
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Last edited by Mark Hatcher; 01-03-2019 at 01:37 PM.