slab vs quarter sawn

[billd]

What's everyone's opinion on the pros and cons of quarter sawn wood?

Bill

[Acer Saccharum]

Slab is generally stronger thru the wrist than quarter.

If you can get quarter with nice grain flow thru the wrist, go for it.

Quarter is over-rated, in my opinion. Some pieces of wood will show grain best on the quarter, while others show great grain no matter how the piece is sawed. Best advice is to pick out your wood in person.

This evening my opinion meter is in the red zone, so take this with a grain of salt.

Tom

[Bill of the 45th]

I'm with Acer, for stocks it's so-so, but for Mission furniture in Oak, it's fantastic, especially when fumed.  Also more expensive, as you get less wood from a tree due to the way it's cut from the log..

bill

[Jim Kibler]

If your worried about showing off curl to the best advantage, usually the grain will be oriented such that it shows best on the sides of a quarter sawn piece.  There will be times with really a good piece of wood where it will have grain such that curl will be present on both faces.  I could be off base, but I don't recall seing curl on the slab sawn face and not on the quarter.  With that being said, I use both cut orientations.  Each can be just fine.

[westerner]

I agree strongly with " quarter sawn is over rated "  I like my blanks in between-not board sawed and not quartered. You get the best from both cuts. You'll never get marbled Walnut from QS wood.  I dont have an opinion on Maple.  Most of the wood I use is Walnut.  I'm surrounded by western Maple here. Wouldnt use it for a gunstock.

         Joe.

[northmn]

I just bought a stock for a future project that is plain sawed (slab).  When I started, there was quite a bit of sales pitch about using only quarter sawed wood for stocks.  Plain sawed wood depends some upon where it was cut.  Likely out of a good tree, sawyers will get two to four quarter sawed planks as the absolute pith or center is not good.  then maybe a couple or so plain sawed off the side, where the center grain is not so obvious.  Actually a plain sawed plank is two quarter sawed planks with a center area division such that figure may not be so much of an issue.  The center part will tend to be somewhat more plain.  I would guess that the absolute premium blanks p++ may be quarter sawed and the others can be either.   Plain sawed lumber, used for other purposes has something of a bad reputation for warping.  I was taught in my IA teacher program that two six inch boards will make a better desk top or whatever than using a 12 inch.   Personally I think with the size of good trees diminishing, plain sawed lumber is a necessity to meet demand.  Wrist strength is more dependent upon layout such that you get straight grain through the wrist or close to it just like a tool handle. 

DP

[Captchee]

 I think  the popularity of ¼ sawn wood has came about really for figure in maple .
 Folks forget that  just because a piece has high figure . It doesn’t always mean it’s a quality plank 
 Today’s P+++ scale  is based on that figure .  So you can get a plank that wonderfully figured but still to soft for good work..
 As was also said . Some woods are better if not ¼ sawn

[ronward]

as mentioned, it depends allot on where the blank was cut out of the stump. the closer to center cut, (relatively small growth rings showing) the more it needs to be plain sawn for good figure to show and the more likely it will exhibit good figure on only one side of the stock. quarter sawn certainly has it's advantages in stability and in certain walnuts, specificly english and french, QS will reveal the best attributes of the wood, the frequency of that dark-light marbled grain structure and the amount it is intertwined. the further away from QS you get the less frequent the intertwining will be until, at fully plain sawn, it shows more or less as strips along the full length of the blank instead of that intertwined marbled effect. bottom line, a really good piece must be cut out in an orientation that exhibits what is desired. the side effect is, of course, cost from yield. some sawyers will cut for best volume over cost and some will cut for best appearance with less yield.....it all depends on how deep your pockets are and whether or not the sawer wants to get good blanks or allot of blanks out of the stump. the more mineral in the grain the higher the desire to make money off of it.
  maple generally yields better figure plainsawn and planks closer to the outer circumfrence of the tree will show it best. the compressions that cause the figure occur radially and when quarter sawing you don't cut accross the compressions as much as when plain sawing.  i believe that is the main reason hard maple was used as much as it was,  besides it's abundance.  plain sawing is not as strong through the wrist, so hard maple was chosen to get good figure from plain sawing and better strength from it's density through the wrist. the soft maples being relegated to the plainer, straighter grained stocks destined for the trade guns.

[Jim Kibler]

I'm sorry ronward, but I can't agree with some of what you have said.  First of all, when I speak of figure, I am talking about curl in maple.  Nothing else.  I can't agree that "maple generally yields better figure plainsawn".  Like I said before, the vast majority of the time, the curl will be strongest on the face of a quarter sawn plank.  Believe me, that's just how it is.  As mentioned before, in some circumstances, it can be present on both slab and quarter sawn faces, even then it's generally strongest on the quarter side.  Just sort through the blanks from of one of the major wood dealers.  You'll soon come to the same conclusion.

[tallbear]

I for one have a profound fondness for Freddie Harrisons quatersawn stump cut wood.Grain though the wrist is perfect and the curl is shown to the best advantage.

Mitch

[billd]

Thanks for the repiles, interesting discussion. I should have put more detail in my queston. I was concerned with maple only and I know it cost more for quarter sawn because of waste.  I was more concerned with strength vs figure trade offs as I've been told quarter sawn is weaker.  If this is true or how much weaker, I have no idea.

Thanks again,
Bill

[Jim Kibler]

bild,

If you use quarter sawn wood, make sure the grain is at least decent thruogh the wrist and you won't have any problems unless you plan on using your rifle as a club.

[tallbear]

Bill
Whether you use plain sawn or quarter sawn, grain through the wrist is very important.A lot of suppliers cut their blanks for high yield instead of proper flow through the wrist which  is why it's a good idea not to purchase wood you can't hold in your hand.This is a piece if Freddies stump cut I would not worry at all about the wrist  even though it's quatersawn because the grain flows through the wrist.

Mitch

[keweenaw]

Jim is right on in this discussion.  What one needs to be careful on in buying any blank is the grain flow through the wrist.  If the purveyor of the blank is mostly concerned with getting the most blanks from his planks he will cut blanks from quarter sawn plank that have the grain running across the wrist.  That will be weak.  On the other hand Freddie Harrison and Wayne Dunlap never cut blanks that way and any quarter sawn piece you get from them will have decent grain flow.   Even then some will be better than others. Grain flow is less important in plain sawn blanks but still needs to be considered.  My dad had a plain sawn curly plank in his shop that had been cut in 1936.  He gave it to a friend and customer to use for a longrifle stock.  Instead of cutting the one blank from it that would have been oriented diagonally across the plank the fellow decided to be nice and cut two blanks from it, each oriented along the plank and give one to me.  I set the one I got down in the corner one day and the blank broke across the wrist and that area was 2 3/4" thick.  So even plain sawn blanks can be weak if not laid out correctly.

Tom

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

The above pictures are only a few of the guns I've made using Western Maple.  I live in British Columbia, and that's what grows here.  Just like with Sugar Maple, one needs to be selective to pick out hard wood and avoid the soft stuff, but you cannot make a blanket statement saying Western maple is not good stock wood.
I don't remember which of these is quarter sawn or plain sawn...frankly, it doesn't matter to me.  I've only broken one stock through the wrist in over forty years of making and shooting muzzleloaders, and it was sugar maple, plain sawn with good grain structure in the wrist.  It didn't survive a long fall, and wouldn't have mattered what it was made of.

[Joey R]

Taylor, Beautiful guns!! You have done the Canadian maple leaf proud!! This is an interesting thread. All the work that goes into building a gun and the anticipation of applying that first coat of finish is when the wood doesn't speak, but rather shouts. As soon as the first plank is dropped off the log at the mill is when you start visualizing what the end result might be. That's how I feel about my furniture and my clocks. When complete there is always a part of me in them. That's why gunbuilding, furniture building, barrel and lockmaking etc.etc. is so, so neat. Wood has always surprised me and sometimes in ways I didn't want to be surprised. Be steadfast in your application and then look for the cosmetics. Sorry for the ramblings but Taylor's post made me pretty sure that when these pieces were completed that he had both a raised eyebrow and a smile. If this post needs to be moved or omitted please do so.

[rsells]

In my opinion, the quarter sawn blank will give the best figure on the sides of the stock, and plain sawn will yield the best looking curl on the top and bottom of the stock.  The plain or what I call slab cut wood will have the curl not as vivid on the sides of the stock.  I started using Freddie Harrison's stocks thirty years ago and really like the way the stump cut grain runs through the stock and the curl is briliant.
                                                                    Roger Sells

[northmn]

I have a blank I am now working on that was a plank cut out of a Southern Mn walnut tree.  I had to rough shape it with a chain saw to lift it up an manuever it on my band saw to get a decent blank.  In the process it did not come out with the best wrist orientation.  As the price was right I will still use it.  Some of the concerns about writst strength etc may be a little over done.  I had a wrist break when a rifle slid off a poorly designed loading bench at a shoot.  The rifle took a bouce or two and the wrist went.  The only time one ever broke for me and a real fluke.  It was also on a 13/16 slim built late Lancaster with a DST which also weakened the wrist.  After taht I am a little more concerned about orientation as that one could have been bette.  However, consider pistols.  The grip area on a pistol has to be about as cross grained as you can get and yet they stand up.  I think as long as we don't swing them by the barrel like a club to finish off Grizzlies or human enemies they will likely stand up.

DP

[Birddog6]

The only one I ever saw broken at the wrist that had good grain structure there, the rifle fell off a bluff about 40' and it hit a large boulder point directly on the wrist........   I feel any rifle taking that fall would have broken there.
All others I have seen broken at the wrist had grain runout at the wrist........  I am sure there are exceptions, but the majority of them will be grain runout. IMHO.   You can make all the excuses of price, avail, pretty, sentimental, whatever, it all boils down to good grain there or not so good grain there, to downright bad grain there............

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Provides job security for gunsmiths who develop good methods to pin and reinforce wrists with runout...... preventative or repair!!

[Kermit]

Thanks, Taylor, for the graphic proof that our Bigleaf Maple can have mighty fine figure. I used to know a 'smith who only used western maple. He had a direct source from a smallmill that had a sawyer who knew what he was looking at as the wood fell off the saw.

No one has mentioned "rift" cut wood. That's when it's neither vertical grain (quartersawn) nor flat grain (plainsawn). The growth rings are oriented mostly diagonally when you look at the end of the board. A lot of "vertical grain" wood these days is really rift cut.

I look for rift cut wood for furniture legs--tables, chairs, desks--so that all sides of the legs are essentially the same in appearance. Avoids having VG on one face and flat grain on the adjacent face.

I'm currently in possession of a hard maple blank from Dunlap with a barrel in it--so far. I bought it specifically because I wanted a plain maple stock without any flatsawn grain anywhere. Time will tell if my call was right.