Official Luthiers Forum!

I've never seen this before so I thought I'd post it (I'm sure I'm not the first to do this, though).

I like to glue up veneers in my mold I use for laminating sides then slice off strips to use for top/back purfs-much easier than managing all those individual little strips (thank you, Mr. Bogdonovich). A few days ago I was laminating some purflings to use on some upcoming builds and got this idea when I notice the perfectly straight,even, quartered grain lines in some wenge veneer that alternated light milk chocolate/almost black. I cut two consecutive strips on the bias and flipped one end for end and layed them up like you would when making wheat/herringbone purf. It came out looking great, like very fine wheat. Though the points weren't all perfectly aligned, they're all pretty darn close. Anyone wanting a quick and easy way to make something that looks like a wheat pattern might want to give this a try. Just make sure you have veneer with extremely straight, even grain lines with decent contrast and make sure you line up the grain lines when gluing up.

-William