Flame Maple (also known as tiger maple, flamed maple, curly maple) prized for its beautiful appearance, it is used frequently in high end musical instruments. The use of flame maple on stringed instruments can also trace way back to the early 19th century, such as violins, mandolins and guitars. There are more than 128 species of Maple Tree's, but flame maple is found only in a small percentage of maple trees and those really eye-popping examples come from less than one percent. Flame maple exhibits a dramatic change in the individual stripes or lines as the incident angle of the light is slightly altered. This is what gives figured maple tops that amazing wavy, 3-D quality.
Tonally speaking, maple wood in general reflects resonance really well. Maple's hardness reflects the vibrations rather than absorbing them, giving it that liveliness or quick responsive feel. Maple wood also has a great strength to weight ratio for a guitar neck.
Personally, I love the impressive visuals created by flame maple. I've always wanted to build a guitar with a beautiful piece of flame maple top. However, from my experiences with all solid Maple bodies, they are intensely bright and sometimes can be a little too bright for my liking. So I decided to pairs this stunning two piece book-matched flame maple top with a one piece mahogany to really add some warmth and mid range to it.