Spalted wood

RevWill said:

If I was buying that uke I would love it and hug it and pet it and squeeze it and cuddle it and pick it and strum it and call it George.

I think it's cool lookin' as is.

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Gosh, Will, that doesn't sound like you.

I am a Looney Toons fan.

Okay, okay. I'm being picky .
I still wouldn't buy it though. The mismatch would jump out at me every time I picked it up and I could never love it.

Ian.

mattclara said:

Gosh, Will, that doesn't sound like you.

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I do foresee a spalted uke on the horizon for me eventually, and I would actually almost consider that too symmetrical to be perfectly honest.

What some people consider flaws I consider character and individuality. That's just my nature I guess.

GrumpyOldMan said:

Okay, okay. I'm being picky .
I still wouldn't buy it though. The mismatch would jump out at me every time I picked it up and I could never love it.

Ian.

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I look at it and actually feel a dissonance in the pattern. It doesn't feel right. I suspect it's a biological thing, where some of us are more sensitive to it than others. Consider that, as social animals, we spend a lot of time looking at other people's faces. Our brains work with that a lot, and are specialized to do it. The most attractive faces are those that are the most symmetrical (and average, as it turns out, as in average eye size, spacing, placement, etc.). To some, asymmetrical faces can feel wrong, too. All this goes by way of saying, we may be picky, but it's not necessarily up to us whether we are or not. It just doesn't feel right.

I'll say again, an accent strip down the middle would draw attention away from the asymmetry, where putting them side by side can only draw attention to it.

mattclara said:

....I'll say again, an accent strip down the middle would draw attention away from the asymmetry....

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I agree. That would look very cool.

I do still have questions about how well spalted wood instruments hold up over time and whether the spalting process compromises the integrity of the wood, as well as what (e.g. CA glue) has been done to compensate for that.

(and just like that, we're back on topic!)

RevWill said:

I do still have questions about how well spalted wood instruments hold up over time and whether the spalting process compromises the integrity of the wood...

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Well (again, I think), there is a fine line between nicely spalted and rotten. You've got to catch it at just the right time, and cut it and dry it when it's still structurally sound (drying it stops the spalting process).