Types of Figure
Stock figure is sometimes hard to quantify. Hopefully the following pictures will shed some light.
These two winchester butt stocks show nice figure. The top would be A Fancy grade based on grain lines and color.
The bottom is AA Fancy based on color, grain lines and the amount of fiddleback showing. Another type of
figure is Marble Cake which has flowing waves of alternating color. This often shows in stump wood.
This piece has nice arching figure and there is about 70% fiddleback, which didn't end up showing due to
Photog skills, along with the grain lines which makes it a AAA Fancy grade, and could be called Crotch,
a higher grade yet. Crotch and stump figure are usually confined to the butt of the stock but may extend some
into the forend area.
This is AA Fancy Crotch Walnut. It shows some of the rippling waves of grain lines and color radiating outward.
It also has fiddleback in the mix, but it doesn't show too well. This one ended up being a Winchester 94 rifle
butt stock and forend set.
This is a sample of Quilt or Tortoise Shell maple figure. It is about a AA Fancy grade. Maple figure of this type
is very subject to bark inclusions. Another defect common to maple wood is staining from injuries to the tree.
While higher grade raises the price of the stock, defects drive the price down. Any defect that causes loss of structural integrity renders the stock unusable and it will not be sold without full notification. Some common defects are dry checks (short, shallow small cracks), small knots, "pipes" (a "pipe" is a very small tube through the center of the branch or the tree and is filled with black pith), or bark inclusions. Nails and bullets are also encountered sometimes.
Look this stock over and see if you can locate the replaced piece of wood in the side of the stock. It is the same
piece of wood in the next picture. Colors just didn't come out right.
Some repairs are easily made, such as filling the above dry checks with epoxy stained to match the color of the wood. It will show, but not much. At times you can duplicate grain lines by using a sharp probe dipped in stain and traced through the top of the epoxy just as it begins to turn. Sometimes it is possible to replace a small knot or bark inclusion with a piece of matching wood.