Official Luthiers Forum!

Ken, that is exactly what I thought 25 yrs ago when I first heard the term Vertical Grain. But I learned that was wrong thinking. What you describe looks as it sounds. But the opposite is true. The VG board has the growth lines parallel to the narrow face of the board. And as I understand is the strongest orientation of cut, and is why this cut is used for wing spars in wood/fabric aircraft.
Many of our customers are takiing th VG cut bracewood stock and making their braces with the grain orientation of the image on th right[flat-swn]

Seems to me that this a largely a problem of semantics. There certainly are technically correct definitions of VG, flat sawn, and quarter sawn, but those terms are used loosely by a variety of wood users.

The brace blanks I've used have the grain oriented as in the image on the left, but I can definitely see the advantage of using the wood diagrammed on the right. In both cases you end up making braces with the grain oriented vertically, but as others have mentioned above in this thread, if you split the wood on the right perpendicular to the grain lines, you have a much better chance of getting long brace pieces (x-braces) with no run out than with the piece on the left. Unless the piece on the left has no run out to begin with.

_________________
Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I don't think anyone disagrees that vertically oriented grain bracing can be made from both flat and quarter sawn boards. Brent you do agree right? Thanks for the elemetary diagrams -- but I think I'll be OK just floundering around constructing air craft and musical instruments the same way I've been doing it since 1963

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Brent, are you saying the the picture on the left (if it were a brace as shown) is stronger than the brace on the right. That is the opposite of what I thought. However, I have no empirical data one way or the other.

_________________
Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Yes Bryan. That is a fact. and the reason for the post and subsequent thread. Now whether it really matters one way or another in guitar building, I wouldn't know. Folks have been getting along just fine doing whatever they do. I just wanted to clear up some mis-understanding of definitions and terminologies so at least this community can talk the same language. But also to point out what might be unknown. It is my business to know cuts and terminology of process. As well as matching fiber to needs. I'm not keen to using clear VG cut 2x6's for wall studs. Anyone coming around to build on any of our construction projects over the past several years has been MADE well aware.

Wait, what? The wood on the left is stronger if used as a brace in the orientation shown than the wood on the right???? That's exactly the opposite of everything I have learned. That's also the opposite of what everyone thinks about grain orientation in tops for maximum strength/stiffness.

_________________
Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Brent--

I apologize, but I'm a stickler for clarity. Can you please say which FACE of the boards in your Saturday post above you think guitar makers are gluing to the tops and backs of their guitars?

I can tell you what I think guitar makers do (and this is what I do):

In the image on the left, I would cut the board up further, but the face that would get glued to the top or back would be the long face (the one vertical in the image posted). After the board gets cut up, it would be the short face of the little sticks, and the orientation would be 90 degrees different from what is in the image. This would give me vertical grain that is perpendicular to the top or back of the guitar.

In the image on the right, I likewise would cut the board up further, but the face that would get glued to the top or back would be the short face (the one horizontal in the image posted). After the board gets cut up, there would be more of those faces, depending on how tall I want the braces to be, but the gluing surfaces would always be either the short horizontal face shown in the image above, or something parallel to that face. This would give me mostly vertical grain (with a little angle) that is mostly perpendicular to the top or back of the guitar.

I might be wrong, but I don't think I am, when I say: Hand builders of guitars tend to orient the grain of braces such that it is perpendicular to the top or back. If larger businesses, like small guitar factories, are putting billets through a serious machining process and ending up with something different, I don't know anything about that. But as far as I know, hand builders mostly do what I am suggesting.

If somebody thinks I am wrong about that, please get me sorted out.

Exactly.

_________________
Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Printer2 posted pics of braced backs. I am not able to zoom in enough to tell the orientation of the grain of the first[top] pic. But the second pic with the 3 braces is definitely built with flat sawn boards, distinguishable by the flower grain on the wide face of the board. They are little board[sticks] but they are dimensional cut. When I refer to wide face, I am referring to the widest plane of dimension cut boards. A guitar top is cut VG Right? So whether the board is 2"x 6", .180" x 9" or .25" x .75", the wide face of the board will show the growth lines and is a Vertical Grain VG]cut.
In another post... go back through the thread and look, I posted a pic of 3 quarter-saw boards as looking at the endgrain. Yes all 3 are quarterswn, But only the 2 wider boards can be considered Vertical Grain cut. I call the narrow board of the 3 Bastard cut, because it is neither VG or flat.[But again it is quartersawn].

And in my last image posted is of the endgrain of 2 cuts at the top of this page[ 2] of this thread. The image on the right looks as vertical grain sounds. That was what I assumed 25+ yrs ago when I first heard the term VG and was going through a pile of lumber for the house, selecting out the inferior cuts to use as X bracing for cribbing under our mobile home that was getting jacked up 9' into the air.
You can no imagine what I done. Ya, I cut the true VG cut 2x6's as pictured on the left that would have been great rafter material and left the flat sawn as pictured on the right.

So I hope with this latest effort of words, citing the previous pictures posted by Printer2 and myself, there is no mis-understanding.
And have fun building all the great instruments you folks build.

Maybe this diagram from the Hancock Guitars website will be helpful. It shows the orientation of the grain in a brace in position on a soundboard. This view is along the center line of the guitar body so you see the end grain of the top and the brace end on. The brace in the diagram would be like the ones distributed across the lower half of the guitar top in the photo below. A brace like the one in the diagram could be made just as easily from either of the two end grain cuts in the diagram above. Assuming that braces made from either board have equal final widths and heights (VG), the same profiles, and they have the same amount of run out, they will be essentially equal in strength regardless of which board they came from.

_________________
Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Actually, none of that answers my specific question. What face of these boards do you think guitar builders are using as the face that gets glued to the top or back? I'm not trying to be rude, so please forgive me if it comes off that way, but you know, you started a thread with I am sure the best of intentions, but it has led to a confusing conversation, confusing because of a lack of clarity. If you answer my question about the gluing face of the diagrams of pieces of wood you posted on Saturday, that will aid clarity. I hope you can see the value in that.

I agree with you Don -- pretty confusing and a little frustrating since comments are being made without questions being answered first, not sure why that is the case. Personally, I like when the forum threads are two way conversations.

I did have a thought after re-reading the OP -- I wonder if the essence of the post is a warning that brace wood material bought from ASW is going to look different when compared to the brace wood bought from say LMII or Stew Mac -- really don't know?

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Man, the more you people talk, the less I understand what you are talking about.
Here is your photo...



The first stick is not QS, it's cut at a 45. It's pretty much a reject for anything brace oriented. The second and third are the same. They are both quarter sawn (more or less). Assuming the boards are say 1x4". Drop the second board to the table like the third, saw off a 1/4" or 3/8" stick and you have a QS brace.

It just doesn't get clearer than this...

Exactly -- this has been said several different ways already, I think others are just waiting and wondering why Brent does not simply concur. Seemed like the OP was presented like there was some "new" news on the subject.

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

There's an obvious difference between the respective points of view of the sawyer and the luthier. The former is concerned about how it is cut from the tree and the latter is primarily concerned with the orientation of the grain. While the sawyer says a log is flat sawn, the luthier can take the center cuts and say they are well quartered, especially if the log is reasonably large. Bottom line is I think it is a semantics issue.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Stick #1 cut at 45 can be recut to VG, although with a lot of waste and labour. If it were a thicker piece, you could still get some decent braces.

Alex

_________________
"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Thank you Steve

Yes, Brent is telling us how a sawyer describes the cut, a FYI thing I don't recall him saying anything about how you should use it for your build. I got what he was saying from the first post and I appreciate the information.

Thank you Clinchriver
The image of the guitar plate by whomever guitars shows the soundboard plate that is cut VG utilized in the horizontal position as it should. When I have looked at braces, boxes of them, by folks that make lots, and as I look inside guitars, I never see braces quite like those in the pic but more like the earlier photos on page one. that are flat sawn sticks. So if your looking at the flower grain on the widest face of a board. its a flatsawn piece, whether you standin on edge or lay it flat.
We at Alaska Specialty Woods will be happy to send anyone whatever cut of bracewood stock they want, to use in anyway they see fit.

And a picture someonee else posted was a process plain sawn log resulting with the middle board being the vertical grain cut board.

This is what I said or tried to explain in the first post. B board... the flat sawn plank cut into VG strips

I believe this is indeed an issue of semantics and the differences between words and terms shared by luthiers and sawyers has been discussed here many times previously. While I find it interesting, in practice it has been of little import to me as I don't work directly with a sawyer for custom milling.

_________________
George :-)

I have tried reading through this thread several times and have just become more and more confused by the use of the terms quartersawn and flatsawn because they say nothing about how the grain is oriented in the installed braces.

The bottom line is that braces are glued to tops and backs in the orientation shown in J De Rocher's image titled 'Figure 3 Quartersawn Grain'. I have never seen them installed otherwise.

I don't care how the raw stock is cut as long as it has little or no run out and I can process it to get braces in the orientation shown in J De Rocher's image.

Participation in this thread makes me feel like I'm in that Star Trek--TNG episode "Darmok."

Shaka, when the walls fell.

Who's on first.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQXwt83hYkE

_________________
Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

The End.

You can never go wrong with the Doors!

Alex

_________________
"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker