Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

A. G. Maisey · 27th April 2010, 11:47 PM

I've been thinking about this discussion on kermuning.

It seems to me that the main reason we're going around in circles on this one is that there is a tendency for people to confuse wood grain and/or colour with variations in wood types.

The chatoyant, fiddle back grain that has been shown by some of us as an example of kemuning can occur in a variety of woods, and the grain itself, and colour, are not indicative of the type of wood we are looking at. To know the type of wood, you need a very great depth of knowledge, probably specialist training over many years, and to have the wood in your hand.

My profession is audit and risk management, but my family background is fine art cabinet making, and I have dabbled in wood work at times, for instance, back in my twenties I had a nice little hobby business going, making custom built rifle stocks.

There are a number of fancy grains that we use in wood work in Australia that are also identifiable as wood grains known in Jawa:-

Fiddle back = nginden
Feather crotch = simbar
Bird's eye = semburatan
Burl = gembol
------ and so on.

Here is a link to a site with a number of examples of fancy grains that are known and used in western cultures;

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/person...cs/_figure.htm

select a term from the list on the left of the page, and then click on the link to the photo examples.

Most, if not all of the grains shown here are known in Jawa.

However, these grains can occur in a number of different timbers, so the grain by itself is not an identifier of the wood type, and colours of the same wood type can run through a range, so colour by itself is not an indication of the wood type.

With a great deal of knowledge and experience a person can take a piece of wood in hand and possibly name the wood type, if he has experience with that wood, but from photos all we have are colour and grain, so we tend to relate that colour and grain to what we have learnt from physical examples of material.

It is very difficult to be certain about a wood type from a photo, but we can be certain about a wood grain from a photo

27th April 2010, 11:47 PM	#35
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,987	I've been thinking about this discussion on kermuning. It seems to me that the main reason we're going around in circles on this one is that there is a tendency for people to confuse wood grain and/or colour with variations in wood types. The chatoyant, fiddle back grain that has been shown by some of us as an example of kemuning can occur in a variety of woods, and the grain itself, and colour, are not indicative of the type of wood we are looking at. To know the type of wood, you need a very great depth of knowledge, probably specialist training over many years, and to have the wood in your hand. My profession is audit and risk management, but my family background is fine art cabinet making, and I have dabbled in wood work at times, for instance, back in my twenties I had a nice little hobby business going, making custom built rifle stocks. There are a number of fancy grains that we use in wood work in Australia that are also identifiable as wood grains known in Jawa:- Fiddle back = nginden Feather crotch = simbar Bird's eye = semburatan Burl = gembol ------ and so on. Here is a link to a site with a number of examples of fancy grains that are known and used in western cultures; http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/person...cs/_figure.htm select a term from the list on the left of the page, and then click on the link to the photo examples. Most, if not all of the grains shown here are known in Jawa. However, these grains can occur in a number of different timbers, so the grain by itself is not an identifier of the wood type, and colours of the same wood type can run through a range, so colour by itself is not an indication of the wood type. With a great deal of knowledge and experience a person can take a piece of wood in hand and possibly name the wood type, if he has experience with that wood, but from photos all we have are colour and grain, so we tend to relate that colour and grain to what we have learnt from physical examples of material. It is very difficult to be certain about a wood type from a photo, but we can be certain about a wood grain from a photo Last edited by A. G. Maisey; 28th April 2010 at 12:32 AM.