Good Point El Destructo...... That is exactly what I told my cousin, but he insisted that we leave it as is. He's a little crazy.
It has pretty straight grain, but has a run off or two. If I was making it for myself, I would definitely back it and take a little poundage off.
NTProf, I think you will like maple in the pyramid design. If you get your width tapers fairly even, they about tiller themselves. I basically just floor tiller them, pull them to 10" on the long string/fine tune tiller, brace them at 3", exercise/scrape out to target weight, brace them at 5 to 6 inches and continue to final draw weight. The hardest part for me is not getting too impatient or wild when roughing them out on the bandsaw.