What exactly is quarter sawn

[brooksmill]

Is it sawing a log in quarters and then taking each quarter and sawing it and what is the benefit.  As you can see I'm new at this. 

[jim king]

Quarter sawn does three things, it makes very stable wood, makes boards with excellent grain pattern, raises your cost and profit margin.

[Greg]

Quarter sawn does three things, it makes very stable wood, makes boards with excellent grain pattern, raises your cost and profit margin.

One more, its lower utilization of the log, i.e. less board feet.

You get higher quality (in general) boards, but fewer of them. Plus it costs more to saw that way.

Try to "search" on quartersawn, you'll find enough prior posts/reading to last awhile ;-)

Greg

[mike_van]

Just an opinion on the grain pattern, unless you have the rays or flake that come in large q-sawn oaks, etc., the q-sawn grain pattern is pretty boring. You don't get the earlywood/latewood contrast that comes in flatsawn lumber. Q-sawn is just vertical lines along the board. 

[Raider Bill]

They must have quarter sawn the 1X6X8 I just paid $5.79 for at the blue store

[Radar67]

In true quartersawn boards, the grain will run 90 degrees to the surface of the board if you look at the end of the board. If I remember correctly, 75 to 89 degrees is rift sawn, below that is flat sawn.

Stew

[Part_Timer]

depending on your mill type depends if it costs more, it doesn't cost me anymore to make it on the swinger than it does to flat saw.

Boring is a matter of opinion.  some pieces of wood work just don't look right with flat sawn, just as they wouldn't look right with all the fleck or ray that is possible in q sawn.  It's all a matter of what each person likes. 

[beenthere]

Woodmizer has a session on quarter sawing at their 25th Anniversary show.  Saw it at Wausau last Sat.

There were a number of "interesting" definitions they gave in terminology.
Rift sawn was 45° - 80°, true quarter sawn from 80° - 90°.

Also, quarter sawn is stronger.
and quarter sawn has raised grain.
and quarter sawn resists liquids.
and quarter sawn exhibits bow.

Not sure what background WM has used for this presentation, which appears to be on their DVD along with other presentations.

Maybe someone from WM can fill us in on the quartersawn presentation.

[Larry]

NHLA defines quarter sawn for figure as "90% of one face of the required cutting area in the aggregate shall show figure".  This is where guys get in trouble even if they don't give a hoot about the rules.  Half the board shows fleck and the other half doesn't.  In my book that board should be priced the same as plain sawn but they will try to pass it off as quarter sawn and ask for the big bucks.

[beenthere]

I agree Larry.
Was at a home show, and a booth with a company name of Quarter-sawn Furniture exhibited very little quarter sawn oak wood.
When I asked where the quarter sawn furniture was, she told me it was all quarter sawn. : :

[MikeH]

Here is some white oak

[metalspinner]

Brooksmill,

If you look at the end of a log, the quartersawn boards are oriented as if they are spokes on a bicycle wheel.  Of course, if your log isn't round, you will need to orient the end grain such that the growth ring are straight up and down across the face of a board.

[Hokiemill]

I've developed my own perspective of what quartersawn is and it includes most of the info above.  Most often I have seen the 80-90 degree definition, but that doesn't always yield the ray fleck in oak that woodworkers are looking for.  My personal definition goes along with NHLA - the ray flecks/figure has to be there before it can be called quarter sawn.  I base this on the fact that woodworkers have grown to expect ray fleck when you mention qtr sawn.  However, all of that rift sawn wood can and should be marketed differently than the flat sawn.  It takes just as much time and effort to get a rift sawn board as a quarter sawn board so the pricing should be similiar - maybe not as much as qtr but definitely more than flat sawn.  As a woodworker, I may be the rare case, but I much prefer rift sawn to qtr sawn.  Too much ray fleck can overwhelm a piece of furniture.

[Brad_S.]

I think Scott Banbury, aka Urbanlogger, has the best web pages on quarter sawing, what it is and how to do it.
http://www.scottbanbury.com/sawingmethods.html

[brooksmill]

Thanks for all the good information from everyone.  This helps alot.  Especially the site for Scott Banbury.

[jim king]

I think the rules for quarter sawn are quite clear.  What is never clear is what the inside of the tree is going to show you.

[woodmills1]

I would also say it is not enought to quarter the log then cut the quarters.  Remember to orient the quarters to your blade to get the most possible actual material with nearly perpendicular growth rings.  My barrel maker doesnt give a hoot for flecks or ray figure, but if it doesnt have nearly perpendicular growth he doesnt want it.

[Brucer]

'Way back in my chainsawmilling days (before there were any portable bandsaw mills) the term "quartersawn" refered to the method by which the wood was cut. First the log would be quartered, giving 4 lengths of wood with two flat faces at right angles to each other. Then each quarter would be saw by removing boards alternately from the two faces. This was supposed to give the maximum amount of edge grain (or vertical grain) wood.

Somewhere along the line the term came to mean boards with edge grain, regardless of how they were sawn. Nowadays folks in the east figure that it has to show figure or it ain't "quartersawn" :D. Here in the west our softwoods don't show figure, so that isn't a criteria.

Aside from appearance, edge grain material is great for stair treads and flooring. The bands of hard summerwood are much closer together, so the treads and flooring wear much more slowly.