A skunk stripe is a dark strip of wood on the back of a guitar neck used to cover routing for a truss rod. When an unpainted neck is made of a light-colored wood like maple and the piece used to cover the truss channel is walnut or another dark wood, it looks something like a skunk’s tail. Think Pepé Le Pew.
A backstrip is the narrow, ornamental strip on the back of an acoustic guitar’s body along the center seam. Backstrips typically feature patterns of inlaid wood veneer called marquetry.
