help me understand - tangenital shrinkage

[Steve Busey]

can anyone help put it into perspective for me?

Here's how I visualize it: Think of the grain of the bowl as a bundle of straws from MickeyD's. They'll squish (shrink) when pressured from the sides and the top, but no squishing (shrinking) from end-to-end of the grain. So, the grain is pointing to the "long ends" of your bowl. HTH.

[charlie knighton]

Steve,

as expected from the tangential and radial shrinkage values for cherry and walnut are low, but i was very surprized to see that sugar maple has a higher value than red oak.