Flame maple
striped figures in maple woodwork prized for their beauty
Flame maple (tiger maple), also known as flamed maple, curly maple, ripple maple, fiddleback or tiger stripe, is a feature of maple in which the growth of the wood fibers is distorted in an undulating chatoyant pattern, producing wavy lines known as "flames". This effect is often mistakenly said to be part of the grain of the wood; it is more accurately called "figure", as the distortion is perpendicular to the grain direction. Prized for its beautiful appearance, it is used frequently in the manufacturing of fine furniture and musical instruments, such as violins, guitars, and bassoons.
During the westward expansion of early settlers and explorers into the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains, curly maple was often used for making the stocks used on Kentucky rifles.
About the wood
When wood from a tree with undulating grain is split, the wood splits along the undulations, so that the split log shows, and one can feel, the physical waviness.
When the wood is sawn flat, effectively cutting off the "tops" of the "waves", the result is an alternating pattern of end grain and flat grain. As end grain naturally absorbs more stain than flat grain, staining the sawn wood accentuates the striped pattern.
Usage in guitars
Figures on Gibson Les Paul Standard (1958-1960)
According to The Beauty of the 'Burst by Yasuhiko Watanabe, the figures seen on the sunburst Les Paul are categorized into 8 types: 6 types of flame maple (Curly, Ribbon curly, Flame, Tiger stripe, Fiddleback, Pin stripe), and 2 other types (Blister and Bird's eye). Note that usually the last two types are not considered as flame maple variations, along with quilt maple.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Flame maple” is striped figures in maple woodwork prized for their beauty. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Flame, maple and striped, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5457165. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1958 and 1960.
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This entry incorporates text from “Flame maple” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.