difference in wood

[Bjorn Rettig]

hello,

I bought some old floor boards (Douglas fir). Some look like the boards on the left in the image below, the others like the boards on the right. What's the difference? Is it quarter vs. flat sawn boards?

thank you,
--bjorn

douglasfir.jpg

[joe milana]

endgrain.jpgYep, look at the grain direction on the end of the boards

[Dave Van Ess]

The botton left would be "rift"

0 to 30 degrees, quater sawn
60 to 60 degrees is rift.

60 to 90 degrees is plain slice of "slab"

[Don Morris]

And I keep forgetting functional differences in the different cuts, other than esthetics. Where do I go to read up on that? Thanks.

[Richard Wolf]

For some reason quarter sawn soft woods are called "vertical grain". Vertical grain Doug fir was the standard for flooring and stair treads back in the day.

[Bjorn Rettig]

Thank you all.

I had seen the term "vertical grain" many times before, but no idea what it meant.

After going through all 20 boards 18 of them are quatered. Now I feel even better about my purchase. The wood is from a building that was built in the later 18xx. The boards were 14ft long, 7 inch wide, 2 1/2" thick. I will use the wood for building a workbench.

Don: I found the article on Wikipedia informative. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_sawing It explains the advantages there. Besides looking better it's also more stable.

[Aleks Hunter]

Its called "vertical grain" because when you look at the end grains of the wood with the board lying flat the end grains are vertical. It is a subset of quartersawn, which as someone pointed out is endgrain int he 0-30 degree range.This is generally the most desirable cut, and as a consequence of that combined with diminished yield (more waste at the sawmill) and more time consuming cutting handling is more expensive, particularly in pricier woods. Vertical grain woods are certainly a must for soundboards, and most often for bodies of musical instruments like guitars, viol family, and even pianos. They are preferable for boat builders and luthiers because of their inherent strength, the strongest board out of any log will be vertical grain. They also produce crisper sounds than rift or flat cut boards from the same log. They are preferable for the rest of us because vertical grain boards are much more stable and are much less likely to cup over time. Lastly in certain woods, particularly oaks and some rare spruces have medullar rays which are striking and generally only visible on vertical grain faces.