Explain the difference between rift and quarter sawn, please.
 

My understanding of quarter sawn wood is that the growth lines run perpendicular to the face of the board. Therefore, it would seem to me that the ideal cut for any quarter sawn board would be radially outward from the center of the log.

However, when I look it up on several websites, it seems like the rift sawing pattern is what would lead to perpendicular growth lines. The quarter sawn pattern they show on several websites only gives you perpendicular growth lines on some cuts in the middle of the quarter. The rest are off 90 degrees. To my way of thinking, based on the cut pattern shown in this example diagram, rift leads to the most 90 degree growth lines (all of them, in fact).

But I've always taken rift to mean somewhere between quarter sawn and flat sawn. Am I missing something?

https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...g?format=1500w

https://www.oaklinefloors.net/our-bl...the-difference

It is confusing looking at that typical graphic. Rift sawn is more wasteful and is a cut used to eliminate ray fleck that you would get on perfectly QS wood. Yes it's true that QS wood is best right in the middele but as you get away from the middle you will still have QS pieces where the vertical grain is perfectly vertical and tapers off to the edges. That's typically ok for guitar building since we can put those edges on the outside of the guitar profile.

Rift sawing tries to keep the annular rings at a steady 30 degrees or soo 'off quarter' or off vertical to try and eliminate fleck.

That makes sense but I’m getting the feeling that those graphics aren’t right. The way those cuts are made in the graphic, every piece is at 90 degrees to the growth rings, no? It does look extremely wasteful.

The best way to see a good difference is not with a top shot, but an end grain shot of cut wood.

Steve

You pick which is each by the photo

Your examples with an end view, these are all maple except one has been roasted.

Steve

http://www.mirwa.com.au/images/tc.JPG

Flat, Rift, Quartered?

Here's a link that has a good explanation:
http://www.hardwooddistributors.org/...n-sawn-lumber/

I've seen it mentioned in posts here before (I believe regarding neck blanks) but are there situations where rift sawn is more stable than quarter?

Agree completely and I get it in practical terms. It’s just the actual diagrams for how

Flat,Quartered,Rift

The key is not the end grain, but the top surface, if you look at the middle one, you can see flek in the top surface, the end one, whilst the end grain is at a beautiful 90 degrees, the actual top surface is straight and flek free.


Steve

Agree completely and I get it in practical terms. It’s just the actual diagrams for how the logs are sawn don’t match up with what the end grain should look like. If all the rift sawn cuts from the photo are cut straight in toward the center, every resulting board should have vertical grain. The diagrams for the sawing patterns don’t make sense.

My understanding.

Rift sawing is optimising the cuts to get the best straightest grain on the face. No real standardised cutting process, its about optimising.

You can get riftsawn wood out of the quartersawn process, these sections albeit smaller, hence more expensive

The photo you supplied, I am guessing they are just trying to highlight the lack of good wood for a better way of saying (wasteful) in comparison to traditional quartersawn which is wasteful compared to flat sawn, all the wood is useful, but maybe for making pens, toothpicks and all sorts of wood products

Steve

It has always been my understanding that quarter sawn lumber has the grain running perpendicular to the surface and rift sawn gran is at an angle to the surface.

As in this article.

https://www.canadianwoodworking.com/...here-they-come

Try other diagrams. Here's a page with a few ways of looking at things:
http://tompeterflooring.com/flooring...sawn-flooring/

Even has a video:

Steve is correct. In furniture building it is always preferable to have rift or quartered pieces for long and slim parts like table/chair legs.

The biggest difference between the three is the amount of grain running the full length of the cut. The more grain you have in the full length of the neck the better and stronger that individual piece of wood is naturally.

This is an excellent opportunity to rail against misinformation perpetrated by idiots on the Internet.
For most of my life, I was taught that rift sawn wood had growth rings that were between parallel and perpendicular to the face......usually between 45 and 75 degrees. THAT IS THE ONLY WAY TO HAVE STRAIGHT GRAIN WITH NO RAY FLECK.
With that in mind, the posted illustration is dead wrong. I have seen this on several websites.
90 degree (vertical) grain produces ray fleck. Rather than call it rift sawn, a more accurate term is radial sawn. That is the way guitar tops are cut, where vertical grain is paramount.

What you are describing is called runout. That is not directly related to this discussion. Runout occurs when the boards are not cut parallel to the fibers along the length of a log. This discussion is about grain alignment through the thickness of a board. Runout happens under three different conditions. One is when a straight board is cut from a curved log. A second is when a slab cut board is cut from a tapered log. The third case is when a quartered board is cut from a log with spiral growth.

The diagrams in the OP are contrary to the understanding I have operated with my entire working life. This kind of misinformation (in the context of lutherie) is very discouraging as it makes meaningful conversation that much more difficult. Perhaps it is not so much misinformation as an example of how the lexicon of language shifts over time.

When I say quarter sawn, I mean what is shown in the “rift” illustration, yet no purveyor is selling “rift” sawn wood. To me, quarter sawn means the annular rings, viewed from the end, are 90 degrees to the surface. Slab sawn would have any part of the board with the annular rings parallel to the surface. Rift would be in between, particularly where the board is neither quartered nor slabbed. Most lumber that is not slab cut is rift, as for the purposes of lutherie, quartered wood must be actually quarter sawn across its entire width. If not, assuming it is not slab, it is what I call rift. There is an ongoing discussion as to what degree of perfection is required for material to qualify as quarter sawn before it no longer qualifies. I admit to being at the hardcore end of the spectrum as I need to see no more that 3 degrees of deflection to label wood as quarter sawn.

Run out is another issue altogether, and has no direct bearing on an end grain diagram.

My nomenclature is that of the woodworker. The nomenclature of the sawyer, which I do not speak, may be another thing all together.