Finishing The Bookmatch Edge On Figured Wood

[Prostheta]

Okay, so I guess there'll be a better way that people use on this one, but bear with me because I'd like to know if my thought train is going in the right direction and thinking in the right way ;-)

A picture is worth a million (or less than ten) words:

Basically, reface your bookmatch, aligning the end grain so you know it's totally face to face (mark the edges to align?) and clamping the wood in the direction you want to angle the bookmatch. Using a jointer or router table, rout along the guide and Bob's your mother's brother!

Obviously, issues such as tearout can be dealt with by good bits, not routing too much at once and dampening the edge slightly I guess.

Would this work well, or just be a potential waste of good wood? It seems to work in theory, and you obviously learn by your mistakes and experience. So I've decided to learn from others mistakes and experience rather than from my pockets bad experiences.

[low end fuzz]

so.... are you just cutting an angle in the pieces out of the middle and joining them at another point in the book match?

if so; it works; ive done something like that to save areally interesting part of figure while eliminating a nasty knot;

the only thing id warn about is how much of an angle you put on the cut; to much and your grain will be to horizontal which may end up looking funny.

[Prostheta]

Thanks - I figured (no joke intended) that it would look pretty cool on a V or Explorer style guitar to complement the angles of the body as opposed to the perpendicular of the centreline. I can see difficulty in acquiring bookmatch figure wide enough to work on an Explorer though!

[Ben]

Cant put my finger on where I saw it at the moment... but I've definitely seen that done before on a flying V.

I remember cos it did look pretty cool

[mammoth guitars]

It might be easier to put the two pieces face to face and cut them at the same time. This will achieve the same angled figure with only one cut. This angled cut is what is done when you have a nice figured piece of wood that has some slight discoloration in the middle.

[j. pierce]

I've done similar, but I use a handplane.

[WezV]

I imagine its how the first guitar on this page was done:

chevrons

It can look very striking but you might need to start with a bigger than standard blank, i wanted to do it once but to get a decent angle you need to remove alot of wood

[Prostheta]

It might be easier to put the two pieces face to face and cut them at the same time. This will achieve the same angled figure with only one cut. This angled cut is what is done when you have a nice figured piece of wood that has some slight discoloration in the middle.

*cough*

That's what I was suggesting!

[mammoth guitars]

*cough*

That's what I was suggesting!

Sorry, did not see your middle line in the drawing.