Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Fiddle back grain pattern, or something else?

Here's some pics of a rifle with some beautiful grain patterns. Can someone tell me whether it would be properly referred to as "Fiddle Back"?

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=377760447

Also, these stripes appear to be perpendicular to the grain. Anyone know whether these patterns would weaken, strengthen or not do anything to the stock...other than aesthetically?

Any educated responses appreciated. Thanks.

I don't know if it would be called "fiddle back" or not, but that is one gorgeous stock!

Always called that a Tiger Stripe.. But the first time I saw a moose in the woods I ran all the way back to camp hollering "I saw a sow moose!" so I'm not the one to ask.....

W

Think that is fiddle back.

W

Yes, fiddleback is the correct term for that grain pattern.
Here are some fine samples.
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=f...mp;ved=0CDIQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=620

What I call fiddleback is narrower strips of dark wood and a lot closer together.

Ha!

If it did compromise the strength of the stock I'm sure it'd take a heavy hitting cartridge to cause any damage.....

I'm sure in a 6.5 Swede I ain't gotta worry about it.

I guess I'm mainly just curious about the proper term and whether it does weaken stocks or not.

No weakening, just added beauty. And yes, that one is a good one IMO.

Fiddleback, as some have pointed out, is much tighter than that. The figure in that particular stock is weak enough I would call it "loose curl" rather than fiddleback. It is almost certainly boardsawn which reduces the look on the broad vertical surfaces. The best fiddleback is quartersawn to show the figure best on the widest surfaces.

It literally is a case of the wood fibers undulating as they are laid down. It typically is more dense than non-fiddleback wood from the same exact tree and stronger and more stable. It is about how much wood is in the wood and how good the wood in the wood is.

Wood is a matrix surrounding a surprising amount of air. Build that matrix with stronger wood, laid down with fibers running in different directions to handle different stresses, and put more wood in it and it will be stronger.

It is often called curly in maple. I often wonder where the notion of tiger "tail" came from...

Here are a couple examples in maple of the difference in look between boardsawn and quartersawn. These two stocks came from right next to each other.

Good info from Sitka deer.
I would call the stock referenced a fiddle back pattern, but as noted it is not a real tight pattern.
Maybe that should be the difference between fiddle back and tiger stripe pattern--how tight the pattern.
The knife handle below has a little tighter pattern, but not a high end piece.
I have some tiger stripe maple that is pretty soft, but most is fairly hard.

jmho
Tim

Thanks guys. Whether curly, fiddle back, or tiger stripped it's all beautiful, and if it means a stronger grain- or atleast not a weaker one- then i'm happy.

Here is a 6.5x55 Mauser I regret selling to this day.

Dang dude that thing is gorgeous.

WOW

Is this marbled or fiddleback? A pre-war M70 270.

Neither, really... The butt is mainly crotch wood. The black lines do not follow the annual rings perfectly and are caused by fungus growing in the wood. The microscopic fungus "hairs" release digestive enzymes that allows the fungus to use the digested materials.

The black is the left-over oxidized sugars that could not be absorbed.

True marbling is entirely random and usually much blacker.

Note: I realize there are some points simplified to the point one way of looking at the description could be called an error...

Oh, and it is gorgeous!

yes that is what I have always known as fiddle back

those are some very fine rifles there.

An old Stradivarius violin just sold for $2.3 million.
Yes when you look at the back side, it has "fiddle back".
Not quite as nice a pattern as some of the wood shown above.
Tim