How is chatoyancy formed?
Chatoyancy occurs when a band of light is reflected from a series of thin inclusions which are parallel to each other (these may be hollow tubes or needle-like crystals of, for example, rutile or haematite). In order to display this effect there must be enough fibres oriented in parallel to the base of the stone.
How does curly maple form?
Dave Hurwitz describes curly maple: “If the tree grew tall and straight, the resulting grain will be straight and consistent, which makes it easier to plane flat and easier to cut. But, some tress grow in places or in conditions that cause the resulting grain to not be straight. An extreme example is curly maple.
What causes curly grain in wood?
Curl is compression grain perpendicularly crossing the face of a board producing alternate stripes of hard and soft board fiber. This phenomenon creates a chatoyantcy in the board varying in strength depending on the degree of compression leaving the viewer with the illusion of a three-dimensional surface.
What causes tiger stripes in wood?
Tiger stripe comes when the tree develops wavy grain. It may be the result of a viral infection in some cases. In other cases, it is genetic. Tiger stripe sometimes happens when a tree grows in soil that has minerals concentrated in an area of the root system, feeding part or all of the tree and affecting its color.
What causes Chatoyancy in wood?
One cause of chatoyance is the tree being under stress as it grows, causing the grain to curl back on itself. This results in an effect that basically looks like waves within the wood. This is an amazing and beautiful 3D look that changes as you look at the wood from different angles.
What is Chatoyancy in wood?
In gemology, chatoyancy (/ʃəˈtɔɪ. ənsi/ shə-TOY-ən-see), or chatoyance or cat’s eye effect, is an optical reflectance effect seen in certain gemstones, woods, and carbon fibre.
What is the difference between maple and curly maple?
Curly maple figuring is similar to quilted maple, but curl is a primarily horizontal pattern perpendicular to the wood grain. Unlike quilted maple, curly maple is most pronounced when the board is quartersawn, and the curls usually become much less pronounced or absent in flatsawn sections of boards.
Is Tiger maple the same as curly maple?
Tiger and Curly Maple are terms used to describe the figure present in Maple. The term Tiger Maple is most often given to Curly Soft Maple because the curly stripe in it resembles the stripe of a tiger. The term Tiger Maple is also given to a Curly Maple with exceptional or heavier than the normal figure.
What is flame maple wood?
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”.
What is AAA flame maple?
AAA Flame Maple AAA flame tops are very nice and will take your breath away. Commonly they are very flamed and have good matching on both sides.
What color is chatoyancy?
greenish yellow
It has greenish yellow color that makes it even more similar to feline eyes. Chatoyancy is traditionally attributed to tiny needles of exsolution rutile, although other mineral species can be also involved. These inclusions are so thin that they are not distinguishable to the naked eye and even through 10x loupe.
What is the difference between chatoyancy and asterism?
The name Chatoyancy coming from the French to mean a cat’s eye is when a parallel ray, that bares resemblance to the slit in a cat’s eye, is seen on the surface of the stone. When the stone shows four or more ray this is known as asterism or a star.
