Quarter sawn vs. Well prepped flat sawn

[LancsRick]

My endless reading of workshop information continues, and something I've been looking into lately is flat vs quartersawn timber. QS carries a higher price tag, is more stable, and often more attractive. Other than the last point though, when would you bother picking QS over well dried and planed timber? It certainly costs more, but is it a question of time spent working plain vs QS? The statement of it being more stable comes up a lot, but "more" is pretty ambiguous, and a not insignificant amount of skill in woodwork seems to centre around the craftsmanship to accommodate wood movement in assemblies.

Answers on a piece of timber sawn in your preferred manner!

 

[MusicMan]

QS has much less warping when it dries and shrinks. Hence the stability as wood is always losing and reabsorbing moisture as the humidity changes. Also, radial shrinkage is less than tangential so the shrinkage is less.

 

[Ttrees]

I'd pick quartersawn, even if you had to dry it a small bit more than the rift/flatsawn ...
but perfectly flatsawn can be just as stable too ...
Look at telecaster necks for example ...I've seen both with no issues .
I got some pickens of walnut flooring and I chose 2 flatsawn ones, because it was flat throughout the width .
If you're planning to saw it atall ,i'd stick to either one as it might bow otherwise .
But I have never bought any ,so can't really comment, as practicality comes into play here ...
Suitable for purpose ....can you select the best bits ,and process those bits for this project....
and have another use for the rest?

 

[ED65]

Other than the last point though, when would you bother picking QS over well dried and planed timber? It certainly costs more, but is it a question of time spent working plain vs QS?

The advantage isn't always on the side of quartersawn. It can very much depend on the wood. Quartersawn wood can have reversing grain, such as ribbon-stripe mahogany, so it'll be more challenging to plane without tearout than many a flatsawn piece.

But any knots in flatsawn stuff and there'll be emerging grain somewhere around them so they are a challenge to work without tearout. Plus of course the extreme hardness of the knots themselves compared to the much softer wood around them.

The statement of it being more stable comes up a lot, but "more" is pretty ambiguous...

Every piece of wood is slightly different so unfortunately we have to deal in generalisations. Even quality well-dried stuff can have stresses inside it from how the tree grew and it'll have a greater tendency to warp than another board that looks very like it. Even the next board in the stack might be quite different to the one above it.

...and a not insignificant amount of skill in woodwork seems to centre around the craftsmanship to accommodate wood movement in assemblies.

Movement is the normal thing to allow for, but there's also any tendency to warp. Quartersawn is so often recommended for quality work because it should normally be both, having less tendency to cup or warp because of the uniform (and usually straight) grain but more importantly it expands and contracts across its width much less than a flatsawn board because the radial grain is oriented sideways instead of the tangential grain.

The ratio varies, but at best radial expansion and contraction can be under half that of tangential so it sometimes makes a big difference in how much movement you need to allow for, which is obviously key to things like piston-fit drawers and other pieces with tight tolerances.

 

[custard]

The only timber where the entire log might be deliberately quarter sawn is Oak, in order to show the classic Oak ray figure, which is only visible on quarter sawn faces, and it's true that you do pay a premium for that. But apart from Oak you shouldn't be paying a premium for rift or quarter sawn boards, you should just be paying the same price per cubic foot as flat sawn boards. The only two issues with that are firstly you'll have to go to one of the smaller number of traditional timber yards who through saw the entire log and re-stack it into a waney edged boule, and secondly you'll probably have to go in person as relatively few yards will pick quarter sawn boards for you. This second point is especially important as unless the pith has been boxed out you're likely to have more pith issues with quarter sawn, so you'll definitely want to inspect the boards in person.

The vast majority of hardwood sold is flat sawn, for the simple reason that that is what the market generally wants. Flat sawn boards usually have "cathedral" grain in the centre of the board for maximum visual interest, fading out to straighter, rift sawn grain at the edges of the board which makes it easier to joint two boards together to make a wider board without jarring grain clashes. There's a trend in some current furniture making towards using all quarter sawn boards, in order to emphasise the shape and form of the design and not have the eye confused by extravagant grain patterns. That's obviously a personal judgement call.

If you're only able to buy your hardwood over the phone then not only will you be unlikely to get colour matched boards from the same log, you'll also probably be stuck with flat sawn boards. If you're in that position then you could possibly find a solution by ordering very thick boards, say 100mm thick. Then you can rip that flat sawn 100mm thick board into a number of 100mm wide quarter sawn boards. Personally I think that's a lot of faff to get a piddly 100mm wide board, but for people who are unwilling or unable to get down to a decent timber yard then that's their only option.

If I get the time this afternoon I'll grab some snaps of boards from my timber store to illustrate some of these points.

Good luck!

 

[LancsRick]

As always guys, a fantastic amount of information and effort in responses, thank you

 

[RobinBHM]

I wouldnt say its more attractive, mostly it is plain in appearance as grain is mostly straight.

it can quite striking in some timbers, oak and douglas fir for example

Sometimes I buy boards and cut slices to achieve vertical grain. IE 3" timber can yield say a 70mm wide board. But that has to be balanced with cutting into a thick board with a risk of higher internal M.C.

 

[custard]

This is what a flat sawn board of Walnut is supposed to look like, cathedral grain in the centre with rift sawn, straighter grain out at the edges. As I said before, this is what the market mainly demands because you get grain interest plus the rift sawn edges make it easy to seamlessly joint together boards to make something wider. That's why the great majority of hardwood sold in this country is flat sawn.

And here's what the end grain looks like on this board,

However, even though this is the theoretical optimum flat sawn board, in reality you'll generally have to self select in order to find boards as tidy and symmetrical as this. If you're a decent volume commercial buyer you'll probably receive most of your boards to this quality with a phone call, otherwise buying over the phone is pot luck. You may get this board, but more likely you'll get a board where the cathedral grain hangs over one edge so it's almost impossible to joint up a panel without a visually jarring grain clash. None the less, this is representative of the kind of timber you'll get from the majority of timber yards who are usually just importing sawn boards.

However, if you're prepared to put some effort in, you'll find yards that have through sawn, waney edge stock like this excellent board of Brown Oak.

This board was originally sawn so as to maximise the yield of quarter sawn stock. Even though it's rough sawn you can just see the ray figure, when it's planed that ray figure will be prominent over the full surface.

It also shows another couple of interesting characteristics. You can see one edge is bevelled, you'll often find this with quarter sawn logs, it's a result of how the log is rotated between cuts and later cuts intersect with earlier cuts. Another thing you can see in this photo is that the pith hasn't been boxed out and has warped all over the place. Pith is something you absolutely must avoid in finished furniture components, if it's present in a board you must trim it out.

 

[custard]

Here's an off-cut from a Sweet Chestnut board, I recently made a very wide dining table from just two boards of this timber.

And here's the end grain from that off-cut,

This illustrates some of the other advantages of buying waney edge, through sawn timber. The two boards were very wide, at about 600mm they're much wider than you'd normally find with flat sawn hardwoods. There's something very striking and satisfying about a wide table top constructed from one, two or three boards. The boards were also a perfect colour match as they were sequential from the same log. And as you can see from the end grain they're predominantly quarter sawn so they're very stable. This particular table had a lot of ripple figure, you'll tend to find ripple is a bit more common and prominent on quarter sawn boards

Bit of an aside for any wood-a-holics reading, even though Sweet Chestnut is a close relative of Oak (it's every bit as full of tannin and equally durable for example), it has one important advantage. The sap on Sweet Chestnut is only 6-8 growth rings wide as opposed to the 18-20 with Oak. From a forestry perspective that's important, Oak grown on heavy claggy clay with a vacillating water table is very susceptible to shakes once the tree gets above about 18" in diameter. But because of the narrower sap band Sweet Chestnut in similar soil will yield far more heartwood than Oak. For the woodland owner that can make all the difference between a small profit and just growing firewood!

Finally here's some of the Curly Cherry that I regularly use,

You can plainly see from the matching wane that many of these boards are sequential cuts from the same log, which means you're guaranteed an excellent colour and grain match, which in turn results in furniture that's much more "all of a piece",

The moral of the story is that getting down in person to a good traditional timber yard, and selecting your boards from a through sawn flitch or boule, will yield real dividends in your furniture making.

Good luck!