Bird's Eye Maple. What's so special about it?

March 1, 2017 at 12:41 AM · My luthier friend says its a beggar to carve,being so hard.

March 1, 2017 at 01:34 AM · I have a 7/8 birds eye violin. It's a poor violin but it's really beautiful to look at. It has a really orange-colored varnish. That probably sounds bad but it's very pretty. The two-piece back, ribs, and scroll are all birds eye. One thing that is very cool about birds eye is that when you turn the violin slowly, the eyes seem to follow you -- like the Mona Lisa.

The violin was made by Claude Watson (San Diego) who mostly made guitars but then decided to try his hand at violins around retirement age. The violin was made in 1972 and was purchased for me, for $400, as my first "full size" violin in 1976. Dalton Potter examined it a few years ago and told me it was not salvageable -- "it's way too heavy" said he. The friendly luthier at Kapeller's in Richmond (who preceded Britt Leeper) was game to try regrading the top, which he did for a very low price, and the sound was improved but not enough to actually make it sound like a good violin. He told me that he removed an enormous amount of wood from the top, and that all the blocks inside were huge -- the whole violin was built like a tank.

There's really no reason a good luthier cannot make a fine violin out of birds eye. But it is devilish to work. And you've got to make sure the sound post does not wind up right on top of one of the eyes. My birds eye violin has not developed cracks or such in the maple. It doesn't seem intrinsically unstable to me. But for all I know the back is too thick too.

I'll probably just mount it in a display box.

March 1, 2017 at 04:42 AM · I once wanted a birdseye maple violin because they look so beautiful, but the three I've had the chance to try in my life so far have all been mediocre in sound.

...they're still beautiful, though! :)

March 1, 2017 at 06:23 PM · the "birds eyes" can pop out when working. For furniture/cabinet making its fine and looks great. But if you are carving....I would think only luthiers that are into self abuse would use it

March 2, 2017 at 12:17 AM · I think stability depends a lot on how strongly figured the wood is. Some birds eye wood has very tight, dense "eyes" and I bet those are the kind that pop out when the wood is worked.

March 2, 2017 at 12:45 AM · "the "birds eyes" can pop out when working"

Uh what? I've never had that happen when working with it!

March 2, 2017 at 04:41 AM · I used some highly figured birds eye maple to make 2 relatively large (18in x 30 in) panels for 2 frame and panel doors. They were fairly thick, so I resawed it on the band saw to get them down to 3/8 thickness. I started to used a jack plane (lie nielson with a sharp blade) to flatten the boards, and they would tear-out commonly at the locations of the birds eye.

Ended up sanding.....alot

Please tell me how you avoided tear out with birds-eye maple, it would be very helpful

thanks Fox.

March 2, 2017 at 06:15 AM · Oh, I thought you meant they pop out like when you have a knot going through a board and the 'core' can sometimes be loose from the rest of the wood. ;)

For the big stuff I'm a sucker for powertools, so I use an electric planer and the belt sander to finish it if there's some roughness because of the crazy grain switching directions on the eyes.

Doing it by hand.... I was going to type a big long response but I found this video that describes it just as well:

And one trick I was taught if highly figured wood is tearing out is to moisten the wood just lightly, with water or mineral spirits.

Good luck! :)