Anyone get disappointed with flame/quilted maple?

B

Barib

May 6, 2021
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#1
Flame or quilted maple is always a 'special' feature on any instrument. So it's a huge disappointment when it doesn't match the images, or you get a poor cut... It's pot luck.

For example, I bought a flame maple neck online. The product photos looked great - but when mine arrived, it had only 4 stripes at the headstock! The rest was a vague, 'sparkly' look with no striping.

Or, many basses (e.g. Ibanez sr405e-MQM). The quilted effect and burst looks amazing, until you see individual ones. Some of them have uneven bursts, or zero quilted effect. Others are stunning!

I guess it's the downside of buying new things online. You can't see exactly what you're getting. But has anyone here had this issue? There's too much inconsistency.
 
#2
Barib said:
Flame or quilted maple is always a 'special' feature on any instrument. So it's a huge disappointment when it doesn't match the images, or you get a poor cut... It's pot luck.

For example, I bought a flame maple neck online. The product photos looked great - but when mine arrived, it had only 4 stripes at the headstock! The rest was a vague, 'sparkly' look with no striping.

Or, many basses (e.g. Ibanez sr405e-MQM). The quilted effect and burst looks amazing, until you see individual ones. Some of them have uneven bursts, or zero quilted effect. Others are stunning!

I guess it's the downside of buying new things online. You can't see exactly what you're getting. But has anyone here had this issue? There's too much inconsistency.
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Nope.
Anything I've bought on line had an actual picture of what I was buying.
I'd ask if it was a stock picture or an actual picture of the bass for sale.
If it was a stock photo I'd ask to see a photo of the actual bass.
If they couldn't comply I wouldn't buy.
After 104 basses none of the flame or quilted were misrepresented.
 
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#4
B-Mac said:
Nope.
Anything I've bought on line had an actual picture of what I was buying.
I'd ask if it was a stock picture or an actual picture of the bass for sale.
If it was a stock photo I'd ask to see a photo of the actual bass.
If they couldn't comply I wouldn't buy.
After 104 basses none of the flame or quilted were misrepresented.
Click to expand...

I think it must be a bigger problem in the lower-priced products - anything I've bought/researched was in the £350+ range. They must have less budget to throw away the sub-par cuts. It makes me anxious to buy one of these basses new (none in stores nearby, or used online). But hey, just gotta hope (or pay loads more).
 
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#6
No. But as someone who's spent a lot of time in photography, often it doesn't photograph well unless the angle of light hitting it is just right. I had a bass with a quilt top that almost looked like the surface of the ocean with about a two-foot swell going, and I could never get a good picture of it.

I think quilt and particularly tiger stripe (flame) maple is overlooked for bass.
 
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#7
Barib, two things I just thought of:

I NEVER buy online unless there's lots of very good, pro pictures of most every inch of it of the particular one I'm buying: No surprises. Sweetwater is very good at that, and if I buy on Reverb, I look for the same thing. One or two half-assed cell phone pics? Automatic NO.

But then, I'm pretty open about wood. The beautiful yet frustrating magic of how each piece is just different, so I'm probably a little slower to get uptight about it. I enjoy the random-ness of it.
 
#8
J Wilson said:
No. But as someone who's spent a lot of time in photography, often it doesn't photograph well unless the angle of light hitting it is just right. I had a bass with a quilt top that almost looked like the surface of the ocean with about a two-foot swell going, and I could never get a good picture of it.

I think quilt and particularly tiger stripe (flame) maple is overlooked for bass.
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I found this to be true with a natural quilt NS-4 that I have. Very plain and bland in natural or room lights, but really "pops" under stage lights or certain photographs.
 
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#10
I once asked to see the actual instrument of a Sire 5 string I was interested in. All I wanted to see was the body top and the back of the neck, they only sent me the top and no pics of the neck. It cost them a sale.
 
#11
I've only had one and it was to die fore beautiful.

Said it was AAA and I guess that is good. Gibson Les Paul, double cutaway, chambered, blah blah, with burst buckers. A guitarist friend would like to sell it back. My funds are way to low, and moving into a travel trailer limits space.
 
#12
jchrisk1 said:
I'm more disappointed at how much of it I see split and burned for firewood around here. It makes me cringe when I see gorgeous pieces of maple in the firewood pile.
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I find flamed maple in my firewood every year. I've offered it to a luthier friend who builds with luxe woods, but he has never shown interest. So it goes into the stove.
 
#13
In the OP's situation I'd send it back as did the other gentleman who was in the same situation.

For any decorative wood choice where you're dealing with a significant depth of wood you really need to see the instrument before buying. There's just so much variation.

If forced to buy sight unseen I'd be much more confident getting great grain on a mid priced instrument with a veneer than a somewhat higher end piece with a full top.

Luckily, my preference is for simple warm wood with straighter grain and there's plenty of that available.
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#14
Of course they will show the best looking instance in the pics. If you're ordering sight unseen, no pics of the actual item you'll receive then it's a good bet that yours will be a little less figured. The best way to get better figuring is by paying the upcharge for graded woods. But even that is a roll of the dice when you don't have the exact item photographed in the listing.
 
#15
I have a bunch of basses I've built from Warmoth wood. One of the necks has some flame (not a lot), but as I didn't order a flamed neck, it's just an interesting quirk - I wouldn't pay extra for a flamed neck (I do pay extra for a lot of other things), because it's strictly cosmetic, and....nobody ever sees the back of the neck.

I also have a koa top on a body - again, I didn't order a flamed one, but that top has some flame. One of the quirks of flame is it's often much more visible from certain angles. The flame on that top is really only obvious if you're the player - that angle is where it shows itself. So, I have a secret flame top.

A huge issue with flamed wood, especially for a neck, is that, even if you take the best looking, ultra obvious flamed blank, and then cut a neck from it, the resulting neck may or may not have obvious flame - you end up looking at a completely different part of the wood once the CNC is done with it, and has carved away the wood you could see when the blank was a rectangular piece. I'd give grace if I ordered a flamed neck and it came just a bit flamey - I would definitely ask for what I paid for, but I'd understand why it ended up the way it did, and cut them some slack. Wood is a very mysterious thing to work with.
 
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#16
I had this happen when I ordered a limited edition neptune blue Bongo with roasted maple neck back in 2014. I specifically asked my dealer if there was any way to request a highly figured neck, because that was important to me. I was told that it's just luck of the draw. When the bass arrived, I was disappointed because the neck has some light flame but honestly it's nothing special. I could have sold it, but it is otherwise an amazing bass with several options that are no longer available from EBMM. I don't regret the purchase, but I feel it when I see other EBMM basses with ridiculous flamed necks. My only other option would have been to look for one on the used market after the order window had closed, but that would have been an even bigger roll of the dice. And since I've never actually seen another neptune blue Bongo 4HSp, I think I made the right choice.
 
#17
I got a [budget model] Yamaha BBG5 that seems to have a pretty righteous quilted top in the photos but in person you can see it's fake. However they do it, it goes deeper than the honey burst finish layer. Still a nice bass - even fools some people from a distance. But I'd rather just have some plain but real non-flamed wood grain.
 
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