Milling a cupped board

Good thinking, Bill, using the cupped piece for the sticks. Should be no problem with the small change in face presentation. I'd joint the concave face first, as it'll lay on the jointer table with greater stability. Unless of course, you're going at it with a hand plane, then never mind! Tom >: snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Bill Wallace)

In the words of Inigo Montoya "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

'You killed my fater, prepare to die.'

-- Tim

-------- See my page @

diagram and connect the lines. You'll wind up with a series of concentric squares. The original poster is very close, but it all depends on the size of the tree, the sawyer's technique, and the thickness and width of the boards. A very large tree, sliced into narrow thin boards, will yield a substantial amount of quartersawn wood.

JonE

Chris is this closer to what you were talking about?

To be quartersawn, the tree must be cut into quarters and then the wood is sliced radially (i.e. from the center) from the log. It entails quite a bit of waste but is much more stable. Riftsawn is when the board is cut into quarters and then boards are taken from alternating sides.

Sorry, but you're misinformed. Both of these methods are among the methods of quartersawing wood (there are yet others). The distinction between riftsawn and quartersawn is in the angle at which the growth rings meet the face of the board, not in the manner in which the boards were sawn.

See "Fine Woodworking on Wood and How to Dry It" [Taunton Press, 1986, ISBN

Brief excerpts: "In commercial practice, any board with growth rings 60 degrees to 90 degrees to the surface is considered quartersawn ... When the growth rings are cut at an angle too far off the radial, the boards are referred to as riftsawn. The rings are less than 60 degrees but greater than 30 degrees to the board's surface..."

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

I haven't exactly made a secret of that in my posts in this ng, have I?

Let me guess: you're a pedant. And an uninformed one, at that.

Maybe you should read that a bit more carefully. That's not an "NOFMA standard", it's just a general description: "Boards can be cut from a hardwood log in two principal directions: tangent to the annual rings (plainsawn or flatsawn), or radially, across the rings (quartersawn)."

You are apparently unaware that radial sawing is only *one* way of producing quartersawn lumber. Read the book I cited. Since you snipped the citation, I'll provide it again: "Fine Woodworking on Wood and How to Dry It." Pages

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

programmer?

I don't exactly hang on your every word so I wouldn't know.

Ooooh, sorry Doug, you lose all your money and you're going to have to sit the next round out. Now let me guess, you have no practical experience but rely on others for all your knowledge.

It's the description that the NOFMA uses for their definition of grading. Radially across the rings would mean coming out from the center meaning the rings run at 90 degrees to the face of the cut board. Not 60, not 70, but

It's immaterial as your book describes quartersawn as rings from 60-90 degrees. That may be true in some commericial practices but it does not yield true quartersawn wood. Because the description is wrong, the different ways of sawing it are not relevent. If you got white oak with the rings 60 degrees from the face, the meduliary rays would be anywhere from non-existant to very poor. That may be fine for your work but it's unacceptable for mine.

You listen to your books and I'll listen to my sawyers.

Yeah, the government always knows the best way to do things.

Search Google if you wish. You didn't manage to brilliantly deduce something that nobody knew previously.

I think I hit the target close enough. 9-ring, anyway.

Enough practical experience to know that there are more ways than one of quartersawing a log.

It is a fact that there are more ways than one to quartersaw a log. That you are ignorant of that fact, makes it no less a fact.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

Yes, exactly.

I have read dozens or articles about wood stability and finishing that talk about quartersawn vs plainsawn. The context always implied the orientation of the grain relative to the face or the board, NOT the way the wood was originally sawn.