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I have worked with cuts of walnut from that section of the tree for things like floating shelves and coffee tables. Almost every single one of the pieces I made have developed cracks regardless of treatment, environment, or finishing. A few haven't, probably just got lucky. All of the pieces I made were either 9 or 8/4.

I usually just add a chouchu inlay to keep the cracks closed, bigger crack = bigger inlay. Before I even take on the commissions I make certain the clients are ok with it, they like the added "story" of their particular piece so that's a nice part of a piece of furniture.

On a guitar back and sides though, I seriously would not trust it as a solid piece.

What might be cool though is if you can laminate it with a straighter grain species to counter the movement that will invariably happen. Maybe some clever reinforcement would help prevent cracking?

What am I not seeing that makes that wood so sketchy?

As long as it's completely dry before you resaw it, it should be fine. I made a dread out of something like this and it turned out fine. I did use five back braces.

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Pat

"What am I not seeing that makes that wood so sketchy?"

Tree crotches have a lot of compression wood with built in stresses. One way to relieve stress is cracking. Often the curley areas (end grain) develop numerous small fractures. If you can impregnate them with a non-waterbased material (CA, epoxy, acrylic) the wood becomes more stabile, but not necessarily stronger.

I see that in the section where he placed the template, but what about the sections I outlined?

They are less Fun! We all like the crazy grain stuff and try to tame it to our desires.
Often the wood close by wild grain will have some stress built in also, even though the grain appears to be more normal. I used some limb wood with some fancy grain for cabinet doors over 20 years ago and I'm still "wrasslin" with it to keep the doors reasonably flat.
A cabinetmaker I worked with many moons ago liked to make single wide board panels for frame and panel doors. He knew they would most likely eventually warp and stick and crack , but he said he preferred the look of a cracked panel over one built up from 2 inch wide glued up crap.
We picks our poison and takes our chances.

Ed in my opimion your asking for trouble trying to build an acoustic with that wood as pretty as it is. Especially a 1 piece back. It's not a matter of if but when it will crack. Crotch wood is very unstable.

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