What To Look For In Different Cuts of Lumber 

A friend bought a new house in a development here in California. The first time I visited the new place, I noticed the fascia boards did not meet at the gable. There was a gap of half-inch or more between the beveled ends. I remarked something about it. My friend stated that the builder had told him the gap was due to "shrinkage." I described the response as garden fertilizer, and pointed out that boards do not shrink lengthwise to speak of. I could provide expected shrinkage from the USDA Encyclopedia of Wood for the wood in question. My friend contacted the builder and had the fascia replaced for free. Mismeasure passed off as "shrinkage."

The quarter sawn from flat sawn is one of my favorite tricks for getting reasonably inexpensive stable lumber.

*This comment is brought to you by a sponsor of the channel* Great info James! Gotta catch all the rays :)

Far Beyond Riven is my favourite wood-related Pantera album

ALWAYS on top of it! Hardest working man in RU-vid land!!!

Great tips on selecting lumber!

Excellent video, James! One of the best overviews I’ve seen. There were some “glitches” with the videography, to be honest. But if this is the apprentice’s first time, then I’d say they did quite well, all things considered.

Quarter sawn is King when building Acoustic instruments.. So glad I bought a few metric poop tonnes of it over the years and stashed it away as it has become super expensive these days.

Thanks James, Great Video just what I needed

Thanks James, appreciate it.

This is great, thanks so much for explaining this clearly!

Great explanation

Great video James.

Greetings from Germany! Thanks for the education! The Aprentice did a good Job.

Great info and explanation 👍

Very informative, thanks!

Thanks for the knowledge bro.

Like the complex shirt. 👁️ 😂

Wood stability is why, for certain applications, I will use plywood, and as a last resort, MDF. Personally, I like the layered look of plywood as it expresses visually the aesthetic of the product. Others are right to disagree with me.

How did the new Aprentace videographer do? Better understanding wood movement: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BP0j9uy1nuk.html Live long video on wood movement: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OG-lY0H6lUM.html

Thanks for this video!

That was helpful. I recently had two hackberry trees blown down in a storm. I also had a boxelder that was damaged from a few storms and the limbs had become infested with carpenter ants and redheaded ash borers. So, it had to come down. There were no bugs in the trunk, but there is a nice section of flame in about 1/4 of it. I've been considering my options. I could get a cheap chainsaw mill, but they were small trees. Only 14 - 15 inches at the base. A chainsaw kerf would eat up a lot of lumber. I might do some initial milling with a chainsaw, then finish on the table saw or band saw. My band saw is small, though. I'd love to go at it with hand tools, but my surgically repaired spine wouldn't tolerate much of that.

This is great! One of the best explanations of how shrinking works and what to take care of. Thanks James!

Great content for the common woodworker, like that vast majority of us. Now, does lumber move similarly as timber?

Thanks for sharing.

Great video and ya just can't beat the beauty of quarter sawn sycamore!!! Made a jewelry box for my ex n it was just stunning, once again the wood type n grain made it one of the best most beautiful pieces I've made. The other one was a stool of black walnut sides and curly cherry top with curly cherry stretcher! Dovetails on top n wedged mortise n tennons for stretcher!!!

Fantastic information, James! Thanks a bunch! 😃 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

Thanks for the info I’ll save this one for reference.

Great Video, and I actually learned something new !!! Why didn't you mention quarter sawn or flat sawn MDF for those folks that don't actually have logs or lumber mills near them ??? Looking forward to the meat and cheese cuts.... but wait, will you be making a cutting board prior to the meat and cheese cutting video/s ???

I think I understand flat-sawn and quarter-sawn and I'm sure I understand riven. But when I was younger, I saw the term rift-sawn also. I thought it meant something between true quarter-sawn and flat-sawn. But I don't see the term used much any more. Has it fallen from usage? Great, clear explanations. Thank you.

One book I read, when starting out, recommended rift sawn lumber for legs and frames. This was mostly because it would have pretty much the same grain pattern on all 4 sides of the leg. As for logs splitting, while the inside of the log does have some water in it, it doesn't have as much as the outside of the tree which adds a ring every year. When a log sits, the outside dries faster than the inside, so the outside is trying to shrink, but the inside is not shrinking. This creates stress and stress is relieved by cracking. Most trees will have cracks off of the pith when you cut them. For sure, if left in the sun, they will get end grain checking almost instantly. I remember hearing once that the quarter sawn lumber does almost no cupping or warping. It can still twist, mostly because of how the tree grew. I love branch wood for making bowls, though some do not, because it is 'tension' wood. I got one branch off of a big leaf maple, It was growing spot on parallel to the ground. All of it looked like an accordion. It was about 10 feet long, 18 inch high, and maybe 12 inch wide. The pith was about 3 inches from the top side of the log. The ripple in this grain was so that the branch could move without breaking the fibers, which wouldn't happen if the fiber was straight. Most trees that have figure all through it share 2 characteristics, one they are under 'stress', The other is that they seem to be genetically disposed towards having a lot of figure in them. You can get small bits of figure from 'compression' wood, like under a big branch. The buttress part of the tree where it goes into the ground can also have spectacular figure. Crotch wood also has wonderful figure. The trees with the best crotch 'feather' figure are growing out in the open, not down in a canyon and protected by lots of other trees. Got a black walnut once, huge crotch, 20 inch branches coming into a 30 inch trunk. No crotch feathering at all..... Heavy sigh! It did have very pretty compression wood under the branches though....

Thanks James, very easy to understand and very educational.

This video of full of directions and across multiple dimensions.

Appreciate you.

Great video James, as always!!!

That's why old log cabins were so strong. It was all rived.

Many years ago there was an idea of cutting Weatherboards out of logs in a 'riven' style without squaring the timber up, so just "triangle" with a curved outside. As weatherboards are generally thinner at the top this was going to create as many boards out of the log as possible. I've never heard anything about it since. Does anyone else remember this 'idea' or if anything happened to put it into productions?

Great video and super helpful! Thanks!

Very nice video! I tend to like flat sawn on some softwoods, as it can display incredible figures. On the other hand, quarter sawn Douglas fir is stripey-boring for me... everything you said HAS to be considered, but I take pleasure and pride in doing nice stuff with the worst quality lumber in my shop.

I am certainly never 'board' when you talk about lumber (I'm sure you saw that one coming). I was disappointed that your apprentice videographer didn't call "cut" at the end of the video. perhaps it was against the grain? Still, it was a nice Melody to play you out. ;-)

Great videographer xD

Snide remark! Um...I mean thanks for the info 👍

"Now I'm getting hungry"....., For Some Woodworking !! :) :)

Is this going to be used in medicine cabinet part 1 & 2 ?

Ohh this is so interesting

Thanks for sharing that

I have found great lumber from antique furniture that is beyond "saving"

At the end of your video, you made a comment about commentary potentially being pedantic, and I don't know why, but it triggered the thought; "Is wood moving for men (woodworkers) the same as the earth moving for women?" It was at that point I realised that this may inappropriately trigger the easily offended. Feel free to delete.

I have 100 year old bone dry locally sourced dryed barn beams ( whole tree trunks) that were cut down into short 6 f lengths, then dried another 2 year . I grabbed then and they been sitting in my unweather proofed garage shop here in Toronto for last 6 months and seem completely stable. There mostly 6-8 inch squarish with rounded edges with piths . I'm basically trimming them down into 3x4, 4x4 beams to make a french roubo style bench, plan on keeping the smaller cracks and filling with epoxy for looks. Any advice from anybody on how I should try and mill them to avoid waste/ tension cracks.

Thanks. I woud love it if you took a log of oak, and cut it down. Show the process through again and drying. Things we could do, realistically do ourselves. Ya know....the whole process.

I must be lucky. My hardwood place tends to have all 3 in domestic products, flat, quarter & riftsawn. Not in exotics, but in oak, walnut, maple, beech, fir...

Informative as always James! Some lumberyard end up selling "hardwood hearts" which I am assuming are the form of extracting quarter sawn from flat sawn boards. These hardwood hearts pieces are much cheaper - and my question is what could they be useful to make with? I understand it may be for structural purposes but some of them are also pretty narrow to be say used in framing. Any other ideas? Thanks!

A quarter commet on the board

Question, James: Would it be wise to start out by sectioning this log in half through the split?

The problem with making quarter-sawn lumber is that the sawmill really shakes with only a quarter of a blade.

The best long lasting shingles are riven....

Hi James. Very informative as always. The other term I occasionally see is rift sawn. Is that equivalent to riven except it is sawn out rather than split? Thanks again John

But if you have quarter sawn lumber and rip it, do you get eighth sawn lumber? 🤔

Really nice video! I have a question regarding the video though, if you used that same log you were using as an example as a table leg, or something like that, and decided to barely make it square sawing the ends. How would the log move? Or does the thickness of a piece of lumber affects how much it can twist? In other words, does a 4*4 moves less than a 3*3 and would something like a 6*6 move at all? Thanks in advance.

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Comment down below ;)

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I would comment "down there", but that seems a bit beneath me. |-:

Aww man, I thought he was going to actually cut them pieces out from that log. Oh well

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In my opinion. I know it's like butt holes everyone has 1and they all stink. LOL. Make friends with a person that has a saw mill and they for a little extra money will cut a log the way you need it and for a lot less money than a lumber yard because you are cutting (no pun intended) the middle man cost out.

no mention of rift sawn? if you are making a leg or need two adjacent faces that look like quarter sawn then rift sawn is the way to go. Not quite as stable as quarter sawn but better than flat sawn.