is this birdseye?

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Central (upstate) NY
I have some interesting figure in some soft maple and I am trying to figure out whether it is a little birdseye or just sawyering. The pics I took didn't show the figure well. I needed to fiddle with brightness and contrast a little for the below pics.

birdseye_maybe.JPG

birdseye_maybe2.JPG

So, do you think I have some birdseye?
 
Mark sorry no that's not.
But this is:thumb:
 

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It sure is. I was going to use that piece as an apron piece, but it is so pretty that I might try to find a way to put it in the top if it is long enough. If I'm able to find a quartersawn piece for both front and back, will this help stabilize the table as a whole even if the middle pieces are somewhere between quarter and flatsawn?
 
Thanks for the examples. After looking at the endgrain, I think my figure is quartersawn maple. I think it is still rather pretty. :D
No problem, Mark . Thats from my statsh, I got some purty stuff hidden away for some project. yesterday I was picking up some maple and there was a stick 5 1/2 wide and a little over 8 feet long of some 4/4 in the regular hard maple area. I picked it up and added it to my cart. When I was getting ready to check out the clerk (owners wife) tried to charge me for birds eye. I showed her where I got it from and she sold it to me for the regular hard maple price. $4.99 bd ft. I stuck it in my stash for the right moment..:D:thumb:
 
Birdseye is exactly what it sounds like... Peppered with little eyeballs some often look exactly like round eyes. What you have is some nice figured wood. Don is right on his example.
 
just to clarify thing I took another picture. wood.jpg The wood on theleft is a piece of intrument grade maple I have in my stash. when you see it in person it seems to be on fire. in my opinion there is nothing purtier. On the right is the birds eye along wth some highly figured quilted maple that I got for the commision. This is what I look for when I am buying maple.

BTW I have no idea what I am going to to with the piece on the left but rest assured it will be a special piece. it is only 24 x 6 x 4/4
 
Maple and cherry both will have that grain and in the lighter part of the cherry it is very difficult to tell them apart. The grain you are seeing from what I learned is the area that higher concentration of sugar was trapped in causing the grain formation.
Just what an old guy told me.

So someone tell me; is sugar maple and rock maple the same, I see a lot of this in old Rock Maple furniture.
 
Not birdseye.
And, be grateful. Beauty comes with a price. Too often just as a project is nearing finish with birdseye some of the eyes will come popping out. Jack Daniels time when that happens. I know folks who refuse to work with it.
 
Sorry to disagree Chuck but THIS is birdseye maple. What you show is an example of "blister" maple.

The second picture shows the end grain were you can see the eyes as they grow from the center of the tree outward.

You can also see the eyes on the edge of the board where just the bark has been removed. Often you can see the eyes in the bark.
 

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