There’ve been some offline questions about wood warping in shop racks for various reasons. Other than the effects of reaction wood, the straightest, most stable boards are riven ones. Wood fibers perfectly in line with the board. The closest a sawmill can come to that, the better the stock…in regards to warping/twisting, not necessarily figure, which is often better on the outside of the log.
Any sawmill that has to make a cant out of a tapered log before sawing boards…which is almost all of them…is gonna produce boards with grain runout…the ones from the outside of the log worse than those from near the pith. And logs with more taper are worse than ones with less taper. So do logs with twisted or spiral grain and wood fibers.
It helps to evaluate those boards before stacking to give special treatment to the worst ones. The grain-runout ones are the first ones to warp at uneven moisture or uneven heat.
Board-grading criteria for structural stock includes the percentage of grain runout allowed.
When not obvious, you test for grain runout by running a dull awl down the grain so it catches and follows it….or touch a Magic Marker to the wood and watch which direction the ink seeps toward.
Or, you can use my more scientific method….when milling twisty Madrone logs into stair treads I whack each board real hard on the edge of the stack before I place it on the stickers…if it breaks, it goes into the pile for blocking, handles and toys.
These quartersawn 20-22′ rafters were cut with a mill that cuts from “bark to bark”…waste taken out of the center pith and no cant made… and also correctible laterally. You can see how straight they remain after 4 years of seasoning. No 1 Select DF.
As is the case with these FOHC beams and keel timbers….also No 1 Select. And also Q-sawn.
Edited 11/21/2003 1:59:01 AM ET by Bob
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Whoa, Bob, What happened?! Mega-type. And wayyyyy wider than my monitor.... Here's a tip on posting URL's for people to click on: If the URL is pretty long, just type "Click Here" or something like that, then highlight that phrase and click on the little Globe&Chain icon in the tool-box (it's just below "color"). A pop-up box will show, and you paste the URL into that. Keeps your post from outgrowing my little 15" monitor, and looks cool too!
Cheers!
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Two-fingered typist ignorant of such things...will fix.
Bob
Out of bounds.. 5 yard penalty... Still 1st and 10. :>)
sarge..jtProud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Wow, you learn quick guy! Now, I'll go back and take a look before closing out for some zzzzzzzzzzzzz's.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Bob
Nice stacks you have. Are these protected by security gaurds, electronic surveilance, fences, gaurd dogs and are flat-bed trucks accessible to that particular area? Just curious...
honest sarge..jt :>)
Proud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Nope.
Just sitting out in the open in the sawmill yard next to the road....for years at a time.
This is Camp Union, Washington.
Edited 11/21/2003 4:31:12 PM ET by Bob
Bob
I can remember when my hometown was that way. I wish! Maybe soon I will escape to the hills from what is now a large metropolitan city.
sarge..jtProud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
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