Rift sawn oak

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Reasonably close to you, you could have a word with:

http://www.borderhardwood.com

I only ever want rift sawn oak, but trying to persuade timber merchants that I mean it when I ask for it is an ongoing frustration. The only yard I have found that I trust absolutely with this sort of request is Interesting Timbers, but they are a bit far from you.

Not many few yards can really be bothered with this sort of thing unless you are ordering a truck load. Can't blame them I suppose, it must be a PITA for them. Still Border Hardwood say they are oak specialists, so you might get lucky! Just don't let the driver go until you have checked it thoroughly.....
 
What is the advantage of rift sawn over quarter sawn?

Much less prominent and less wild medullary ray marks. Rift oak has very straight grain, and any ray tends to be flecks that follow the grain direction. So it is more uniform and predictable, and subtler, and still very stable as it is almost from the centre of the log. I think rift is much nicer than quarter sawn, which is too in-your-face for me. Rift sings rather than shouts. And you don't get those ugly chevrons you find on crown boards either. Sorry, I'm a timber snob!
 
Also, rift boards sometimes avoid the heart shakes you get with QS, so they are the widest boards from the tree that you can use in their full width.
 
marcus":ny2bzbsr said:
What is the advantage of rift sawn over quarter sawn?

Much less prominent and less wild medullary ray marks. Rift oak has very straight grain, and any ray tends to be flecks that follow the grain direction. So it is more uniform and predictable, and subtler, and still very stable as it is almost from the centre of the log. I think rift is much nicer than quarter sawn, which is too in-your-face for me. Rift sings rather than shouts. And you don't get those ugly chevrons you find on crown boards either. Sorry, I'm a timber snob!

No need to apologise for that !
 
Just another small point. Rift sawn oak can be quite useful for square components such as a table leg where two surfaces can be seen at once. Flat or QS produces two adjacent surfaces with wildly different appearances. Diagonal, i.e. rift sawn looks more harmonious.

John
 
What is rift sawn?

If you imagine a log sawn through and through, the rift boards are the one or two on each side of the central, Quarter sawn boards.... They are midway between quarter-sawn and crown.
 
This is at odds with my understanding, and Wikipedia, and most of the figures a google image search throws up :? They all show rift sawn as stricly radially cut, so should all be like the centre boards of through and through, but with much more waste ?

Like so:

fig6-4.jpg
 
Yes, that looks more familiar. Easier to do, but the resulting boards will be pretty much the same - it is a almost the same cuts, but with the trunk rotated 45 degrees, if you see what I mean ?
 
Like so many things in woodworking, terminology is often not fully universal, and is down to where you come from etc. etc. Also many things to do with timber (or lumber!) are termed differently in the US (and different parts of the US) and in the UK.

Certainly the terminology quartered, rift and crown to refer to boards from centre, middle and outside boards of a through-and-through cut log are in general usage, and are understood in those terms among the timber yards and veneer suppliers in the UK that I use. There are also plenty of results taking that view that come up in a Google search for the term.

Personally I don't care what it is called so long as the people I need to understand know what I mean — and they do. Timber is almost always cut through and through these days, to reduce wastage and for efficiency, and the terms 'quartered' has come to mean the middle board, rather than a method of sawing. If you ask for a quarter-sawn board you will generally get the middle board of a through and through cut log.
 
What you say does make sense. I have wondered at the recommendation of "rift sawn" timber for table legs - according to the picture I posted above, it would be no different to quartersawn. Your description makes more sense of it. If only everyone spoke the same language !
 

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