Official Luthiers Forum!

Sheesh. Just cut up some samples and test them. You could compile a list of many, many builders who do it one way or another but it would not prove or disprove Brent's initial post.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

That would be great, I know of no one that glues braces like the example on the left and it would add to the discussion to identify some builders that do that -- please get us started -- Thanks

I'll edit here and add that ASW posted "The End" and I believe we are now discussing these concerns

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Like I said a while back I don't care what the cut is called as long as it looks like this |||||

If it looks like this === then I will rotate it to look like this ||| provided the dimensions allow for the proper brace height.

The reason has less to to with what orientation is stronger under a stress test and more to do with the fact that there is less movement between the annular rings during times of RH fluctuation then the plane that is made along the face of annular rings in a flat sawn piece. Hence braces with annular rings that look like this ||| are more stable regardless of what they are called.



BTW you know why I go fishing? Just for the Halibut.

To add to what jfmckenna wrote above, I think the |||||| grain orientation also makes braces easier to carve, especially with respect to scalloping, without creating unwanted tearout, which is no fun once braces have already been glued to a top or back.

Also, as at least one other poster already alluded to, this is a luthiers' forum rather than a sawyers' forum, and luthiers use the term "vertical grain" to describe this ||||||, not this =====. I don't doubt Brent knows his stuff with respect to all things sawyer related, but to avoid the kind of confusion that has been rampant in this thread, I think we should stick to the luthiers' vernacular here. It's very straight forward and leaves little room for misinterpretation. But that's just me...

I'm hearing crickets...

I'm wondering though just how much the difference in stability matters in practice. We are, after all, talking about cross grain or angled glue joints (well mostly). Yes a ||||| brace will tend to get taller more than it does wider with humidity and a === brace will get wider but how much of a difference are we talking about over 1/4"? In either orientation the brace is not going to get longer as it takes on moisture even though the plate it is glued to will expand in that direction. So really the stability issue would boil down to (mostly) stress on the glue joint. A 1/4" brace expanding slightly more that it would have in a different orientation seems like less of a concern than a back brace 90 degrees to the grain of the back with 15" of expansion trying to stretch the brace and glue joint.

I have to admit, at this point, I am really only here for the fun thought experiments and don't see myself changing my practices. Still, I am enjoying the exchanges. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

I believe the later ___ will tend to cup when water base glue is applied, raising the outside edges or center off the plate, in other words it does not stay as flat as llllll -- perhaps not an issue.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

When we left to go fishing Wed. It was a Great day.
3 Halibuts- 80#, 40#and 30#, which did get flat knifed by the way, a bunch of rockfish and cods, and close encounter with 3 humback whales and seeing over a dozen more.
https://youtu.be/CuvLQ1kZd8M

Winter supplies! I'm filling my freezer with pink salmon but have a huge itch to land at least one chinook...

I'm having salmon tonight but mine comes from the grocery store

Those are some beauties there for sure.

Fwiw (not much, granted) I have (for a while, don't do it anymore) sawed/planed pieces of brace stock I had split for zero runout into square sections with sides of 3 mm (from the wastes of making braces) and have found deflection of ||| and === grain to be identical. Of course my method could be wrong or too crude to zoom in on the small details. I do suppose so that if the grain was running diagonally , then deflection would be much - but that's another thing.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Lute makers orient the braces opposite of what guitar makers do. I've also heard that strength wise it makes little difference which way you actually orient the grain, but minimizing "run out" is important.

huh...learn something new every day...so apparently riftsawn is NOT a grain orientation, rather a sawing method..and as a method it yields the highest amount of vertical grained product

terminology...PITA...but necessary for humans to converse and have their words understood...

The Acoustic Guitar writer of this article has 2 of 3 correct.
What he has labeled flatsawn. is actually referred to as "plain sawn".
Some flatsawn lumber is produced this way. I doubt this process ahs been used much since early 1900's. But if flatsawm boards are the target, like a lot of furniture and panel boards, where the flower grain orientation is desired, a barrel cut is used, where the log is kicked at 90 degrees after each pass.

Actually, the writer only has one correct. The 'riftsawn' in the photo is radial sawn. Rift never has perfectly vertical grain. The grain in rift lumber is between flat and vertical. Another name for the illustration for 'flatsawn' is through sawn, and it produces all grain orientations...from vertical to flat.

Martin used it at their sawmill in the 1970's and 1980's. It was a large band mill. Any sawmill that is large enough for the size of the logs can cut this method. It is popular for large freeform tables because you can have bookmatched slabs with live edges.

Small circular sawmills and portable bandmills often use this method (AKA 'boxing the heart') because the blade will not reach all the way through the middle of the log.

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John

do a google search for 'rift sawn lumber' and see what comes up...the vast majority of definitions of sawing lumber are what I posted a pic of above...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rift_sawing

appears as if rift sawn and radial sawn are synonyms...

anywho, I'm tired of all this confusion over misused words and such...

This problem is similar to something I read about in an article yesterday that pointed out how irritated electrical engineers are when they see things like amplifier power ratings stated in watts RMS because RMS doesn't even apply to watts. Voltage and current, but not watts. The ubiquitous use of watts RMS by non-electrical engineers in marketing departments has thoroughly screwed that up though.

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

The sawyer's method of radial sawing was good for producing lap siding that would stay flat because the grain was what we call "vertical grain". With clapboards being thinner at one edge there was little waste of material.
http://www.bdcoarchitects.com.au/2013/0 ... -cladding/

Rift sawing (as a sawyer uses this term) has quite a bit of waste and is more work, so rarely done.
I think most carpenters use the term "rift sawn" to indicate the end grain being at an angle with respect to the face of the board. The jargon varies from the the lexicon of the sawyer to that of the builder.

'Rift' is a term that is most commonly used for oak lumber.

http://www.frankmiller.com/quartersawn-hardwood/about-quartersawn/visual-characteristics

"In quartersawn white and red oak, a visual distinction is made between “quartered” and “rift” boards:
Quartered boards exhibit the most figure. (According to the National Hardwood Lumber Association’s grade, 80% of the cutting units on the grading face of red and white oak must show figure to be classified as “quartered.”) These boards generally have growth rings at a 60°–90° perpendicular angle to the face of the barrel.
Rift boards exhibit less figure and are most often those with growth rings at a 30°–60° perpendicular angle to the face of the boards."

For most of my entire 60 year life, that is the definition I have known. Only on recent Internet sites has this been changed.

For all its pluses, the 'groupthink' of the Internet has IMHO corrupted language with respect to the meanings and uses of words.
All you have to do is look at how often 'loose' is used instead of 'lose'. I can cite many other examples.
Apparently, you don't have to have much of an intellect to copy and paste.

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John

riftsawn = sawyers technique

rift board (term use in the link you posted) = rift grain =^ flatsawn

sawn...sawed...sawing...sawyer

guess you didn't think I ferreted through a lot of results before I made my statement?

worked with wood my whole life...been doing so for a living for the last 30 years...

Please define "^".
Rift grain is described as having growth rings that are 30 to 60 degrees from the face of the board....no flat grain is present in a rift board.


I'll just bet that all those incorrect illustrations came from one poor misinformed computer geek who never held a rough piece of rift cut white oak in his hand.

This one is correct:

http://alleghenymountainhardwoodflooring.com/portfolio/rift-and-quarter-sawn/

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John

Hope this is not getting to be a food fight -- I have to agree that when I order wood/lumber from General or LL Johnson and a few others, when I am speaking to the sales staff the illustration at the bottom is what we are talking about and I know what to expect when its delivered.

I do think its also clear from many of the other comments, that we certainly can and do "re-saw" billets or boards "regardless of how the log was cut" and end up with our own board/blank which could be 1/4, riff or flat depending on how we choose cut it.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Newspeak...war is peace, rift is QS.
Double plus good!

I'll trust the Merriam-Webster Dictionary any day...

unfortunately only a google search result for "definition of rift sawn lumber" will give the definition unless you want to start a trial membership...e.g. a link from me won't work...

just because a bunch of ignorant (read as uneducated) tradesmen have been using a term for generations doesn't mean it's correct...



really? insulting my intellect?

wow...

bad day to do that considering I just completed a project that pushed my head to it's fullest and ate 480 hrs of my life

let's test your intellect bud...eh, let's not and keep the forum peaceful...

I took it that he meant the general "you" as part of his point on the general corruption of language. Peace

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