SDA SRS 1.2TL Custom Wood Panels

[Deleted User]

DK,

Very nice! I am also taken by highly figured tiger maple. I searched endlessly for builders as I had a project in mind that I wanted to have custom built out of solid maple. I came across:

www.custommade.com

You present your idea, materials, price range and estimated completion time. I am having a custom coffee table made with a live edge. After looking at all the projects on that site, I was exposed to "quilted maple". Quilted maple is amazing!! After being contacted by many builders and their design concepts based on what I wanted, I choose a builder that is considered local to me. Anyhow. The top shelf will be figured tiger maple with a live edge and the second shelf will be made from quilted maple.

The thing I like. Every step of the project is documented in the "in progress" area of the site. From my approval of wood choice/grain pattern to stain selection, everything occurs after my agreement which truly makes the process come to life and truly customed.

Halen

Toolfan66

DarqueKnight wrote: »

That's a tempting suggestion, but silk would present durability and cleaning problems. The upgraded knit grille cloth I installed has a nice silky black sheen and is easy to clean.

What's next is custom binding post plates:

:razz::loneranger:

DarqueKnight

halenhoang wrote: »

I came across:

www.custommade.com

The custommade.com site was what lead me to Delnero Furniture. Delnero has some of their tiger maple projects featured on the Custom Made site:

http://www.custommade.com/by/delnero/

After visiting the Delnero website and corresponding with Mike Delnero, I was delighted to find that tiger maple was one of their specialties.

halenhoang wrote: »

After being contacted by many builders and their design concepts based on what I wanted, I choose a builder that is considered local to me.

I hope you will share some pictures of the completed project.

halenhoang wrote: »

After looking at all the projects on that site, I was exposed to "quilted maple". Quilted maple is amazing!!

The wood cost for quilted maple in the grade and quantity that I wanted for this project would have been very close to $1000.

DarqueKnight

[From: http://westinstenv.org/itf/2009/03/13/chapter-4-the-best-hardwoods/]

"Bigleaf maple is one of the world?s most exquisite and desirable figured woods. Curly grain, fiddleback, blister, quilt, and tiger stripe are some of the terms used to describe the visually-attractive grain patterns in figured wood. Figured maple is used for musical instruments, furniture, cabinetry, and arts and crafts of all kinds. Manufacturers slice (not saw) figured logs and cants into wafer-thin veneers they sell by the square foot (not the board foot). When figured maple is sliced, it can reach exorbitant price levels translating to as much as $150 per original board foot. Bigleaf maple is also one of a handful of native species that that form commercial burls.

Tree farmers can induce figure in bigleaf maple trees. Curly and quilted grain is caused by irregular cell growth in response to compression. Bigleaf maple has a genetic propensity for such growth, and small areas of figure occur on nearly every tree. Figure most often occurs in compression wood: under branches, on the downhill side of leaning trees, and in the sapwood of trees with heart rot. Innovative tree farmers induce figure by gently bending and tying over saplings for one spring growing season. In mid-summer the trees are straightened up, but permanent wrinkles are left in the hardened spring wood. As the trees put on new layers of cambium each year thereafter, the wrinkles repeat and expand outward. Tying over the bigleaf maple saplings in the opposite direction during a second season induces permanent figure on the other side of the trees, too.

Inducing figure may seem like a lot of work, but it?s worth it. A local tree farmer recently harvested and sold a figured bigleaf maple tree, 42 years-old with a dbh of 36 inches. About 1,000 board feet in log scale were harvested from the tree and sold FOB for $10 per board foot, a total of $10,000 for one tree. Any tree worth $10,000 at age 42 ought to be of eye-opening interest to tree farmers.

On good sites bigleaf maples can have amazingly rapid diameter growth, as much as 2 inches per year. Wide growth rings do not degrade prices in figured maple wood, so the faster the growth, the better. An acre of 50-year-old maples can contain more than 50,000 board feet in large logs. If the trees have figure induced by the tree farmer, that acre could potentially have a crop worth $500,000 (compare that to the $15,000 per acre value of 50-year-old Douglas-fir!)"

Quilted maple veneer.

I wonder if there is any difference in natural figure and artificially induced figure?

Toolfan66

Deleted wrong thread..

[Deleted User]

DK,

The link you provided was very informative and helpful. Earlier today I received a response back from a builder out in Vermont with the total price for my coffee table with quilted maple as the second shelf. The price as insane as it is ( not as pricey as thought ), is very close to the local builder and that includes shipping whereas the guy here would deliver the table at no cost. The builder in Vermont works on a lot of live edge wood slabs. I will definitely keep you updated on the progress and links to the builder's "live progress". Fingers crossed... Funny thing, I even had builders look into the Polk LSI M's for dimensions and played around with the idea of re-veneering the ones that I have. For some reason, the figured/quilted maple just did not seem like a good fit for the LSI M's desgin. Still researching this part....

The estimated completion is around late August to Early September. Build it once, but build it right.....

Halen

msg

I just stumbled across this post looking for wood (glue; eg., that vinyl cleaning trick?)
I'm mostly speechless at the face-lift on these. ab-so-LUTE-ly gorgeous.
Always did like that warm, orangy mottled/striped wood.