Tiger maple backing?

[Blaflair2]

Can I back a red oak bow with tiger maple?

[Josh B]

Nope.  Tiger, curly, quilted or whatever else kind of figured maple gets it figure from irregular grain flow.  Everyone of those pretty stripes is a grain violation.  Josh

[IdahoMatt]

Nope.  Tiger, curly, quilted or whatever else kind of figured maple gets it figure from irregular grain flow.  Everyone of those pretty stripes is a grain violation.  Josh

+1 Josh is right.  Think of it as a real roller coaster of a stave that you just cut all of the hills and valleys out of and made it flat.   All kinds of violations

[Blaflair2]

Would it be an ok core wood?

[NeolithicMan]

not being able to see much of it would be a bit of a waste in my opinion, but would probably work, just not as well as other types of wood for core material. even just flat grain hard maple would preform better i would guess but for ascetics It would not be as flashy

[Polar Bear]

Hard rock maple is a good core wood like red elm.  I think that unless you were going to put it under glass it wouldn't as back or belly wood.

[Dances with squirrels]

I used a piece of curly maple for the core of a backed bow and WOW was I impressed! I've never seen so many frets in a bow, anywhere, ever. Actually, that bow had more frets in it than all the bows I've ever seen combined.

I didn't waste any more of it, and put the rest of that beautiful wood in glass bows.