darker part in top/back & sides

[Anonymous]

Hi, I have a gorgeous 00 ’20 which I love dearly. There is, about 2.5 inches from the place where the neck joins the body, a dark stripe of maybe 0.5″ that traverses the top and continues through the sides to the back. It does not bother me at all but I wonder what it is. Is this a property of the wood from the tree or (as I heard in an interview with Ricky Skaggs) some sort of wood burn resulting from the saw who has to work harder in that particular place because the wood is slightly harder?  Anyone?

[indexless]

Welcome Haragei!

Beautiful guitar, looks like one of those Angel Kisses Richard speaks of, let’s see what everybody else says

[Anonymous]

I meant an 00 1929 of course.. What is an Angel Kiss? I’ll look that up.

[indexless]

Give a listen to Pod cast 7&8 of guitar tops, Richard Talks about angel Kisses there, again, welcome

[haasome]

It’s simply where the grain of the wood changes direction, like a wave in the grain. It could be associated with where a branch on the tree was located or some other natural cause that added the beauty mark. Here is a similar type of mark on one of my German/EIR OMs.  Look at lower bout, bass side. I like them.

---

– Paul –

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I’m listening to the 2 podcasts and will report back. Would this maybe be comparable to a tree where an external occurence (like a draught) would be reflected in the year rings? Clutching at straws here.

[tadol]

Its usually called a “limb shadow” –  its a wave in the grain of the trunk, a small distance over from where a branch was.  A few slices over, and you might have a knot, a couple slices the other way, and you’d not notice it.  The slight additional exposure of endgrain on the face of the wood shows up as a bit darker on the uphill side, and sometimes a little lighter on the downhill, especially in a hardwood where a darker grain-filler is used to highlight the grain. Its really nothing more than a “beauty mark”, and has no effect on tone or integrity of the material in any way. It would have been avoided in the old days because it would have been a real pain to hand-plane without risking some tear-out, which would be extremely noticeable, but thankfully we use abrasive planers to thickness tops and backs, so material with those small bits of character can be easily included in a build –

[Anonymous]

Thanks, that’s very interesting, appreciate it. I like it, make no mistake!

[Old 97]

I’ll take hazelfichte if you don’t mind.

[Matt Hayden]

My OM’s got limb shadows – ‘angel kisses’ or whatever they’re called – on the back.

It’s beautiful and it shouldn’t affect the structural stability – it’s 29 years old and hasn’t caused issues so far.

[Author]

Posts