(This is a wee bit out of sequence with some of the pics I posted recently - you may if you have keen eyes notice that I did the first part of what comes next, a little while ago)
After quite a bit of hunting around and eventually a friendly donation from Ken McKay I obtained some highly flamed maple close to the original.
Of course, this is brand new wood; it wood (!) have been better to find some old flamed maple but there's precious little of this over here.
I probably should have "aged" the wood first before fitting, but I'm counting on being able to match it under the varnish later.
I think a butt-join isn't enough here; although the hide glue joint is very strong, this place needs some long maple fibres running across the joint, so I plane the end down at an angle to put the maximum new wood in place with the minimum join showing at the plate edge. Most of the NEW wood runs along the centre seam, and feathers out towards the edge of the repair.
I don't need to use such fancy maple for this piece, but the grain will still be running almost the same way.
My new Veritas low angle block plane has been brilliant for this job.
Here's the edge of the off-cut and you can see how good the joint is. I have planed off almost all the way through the plate at the centreline, but angled back up to the edge of the plate so that the join will only be visible on the edge of the button itself, not the plate edge.
Well that's enough for now. I'll trim these more and blend the outside with the french-style button later when the plate is re-jointed and probably re-glued to the block!