I'm not a drummer, but Vic Firth was in the town where I lived, and a friend on mine got to talking with him one time about the whole thing. Pretty neat.
There is even built in stress in trees that grow straight and don't lean, although it's usually not enough to cause really noticable bowing. Next time you get a wide quartered board and want to cross cut it by hand, try this: start the cut from the edge that was te outside of the tree, and then start another from the center outward. I'd bet the one on the outside will bind the saw worse. That's from built-in stress.
Sometimes you'll get bowing in cut pieces if the humidity is changing. The MC of the outside of ythe plank will be different from tat of the inside, and that cuases some bowing. It will work itself out as the MC evens with time.
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