Maple and Sycamore for violins

[Quadibloc]

In reading about how violins are made, I had seen statements to the effect that
the front could be spruce or pine - and Stradivarius used spruce... and the back
could be maple, sycamore, or maybe even pearwood - with Stradivarius using maple,
but pearwood along with ash being used in the purfling.

I've noticed that on violins in general, typically the grain lines run up and down
the instrument on the front, but across the instrument in the back. Since they run
_across_ the instrument in the back, I'm surprised that the back is usually
divided into two pieces that are side by side, because the length in that
direction is limited only by the height of the tree. It's getting a tree with a
trunk thick enough to match the height of a whole violin that would seem to be
challenging.

So I may be missing something in my understanding.

Anyways, I thought I would look up information about maple trees, to see how big
they are.

I found that the European maple tree is typically called a sycamore in Britain!
This had me wondering.

However, further searching had things cleared up, I think.

_Acer pseudoplatanus_ is a maple tree, even if some people call it a sycamore
because it has a resemblance to one;

_Platanus orientalis_ is the actual sycamore tree also found in the Old World.

John Savard

[mel...@melvynhiscock.com]

The grain on the back is along the length like on the front. The figueing is perpendicular to the grain in this instance