Book Matching (Slip Matching)

Book matching takes two consecutive slices of veneer or resawn wood -- cut one after another from the same board or flitch, so their grain patterns are nearly identical -- and opens them like the pages of a book, flipping the second piece so the two halves mirror each other across the seam. The result is a symmetrical, often dramatic grain pattern that reads as one continuous design rather than two separate boards glued together.

Slip matching instead lays consecutive slices side by side in the same orientation, without flipping -- the grain pattern repeats rather than mirrors, a subtler and less symmetrical look that avoids book matching's occasional "ink blot" over-symmetry on strongly figured wood.