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.
Quote:
|
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.
|
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.