I dunno if quartersawn or flatsawn makes a difference but the quartersawn squares I got from one supplier were much better than those "stress-relieved" baseball bat quality blanks from one other supplier. 
How Are Shaft Blanks Cut From Trees?
- Thread starter TheBook
- Start date
Suppliers who sell quartersawn material may carrier a bit higher grade of material because they are probably more particular, but if you have the chance to sort it out yourself, then you can pick the good stuff no matter what they've got.
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Arnot Wadsworth
Guest
Scott Behrens said:
Logs are tapered. There is a big end and a little end. If you do not first cut the logs down the center all the boards that result will cross the grain in two directions. That is where the feathers come from in lots of shaftwood. That is why some shaftwood is much cheaper than other shaftwood. Flat-sawn shaftwood crosses the grain in two directions. Flat-sawn wood is not suitable for shaftwood. You will find flat-sawn shaftwood in cheap cues. Turning the stock round does not eliminate grain run-out it just makes it harder for to see.
Quarter-sawing starts with centering the log on the carriage. It is then ripped down the center. You now have two halves. Each half is then centered on the carriage and ripped down the center. Now you see two flat surfaces like 1/4th of a pie. The flats are placed down and against the head blocks and the boards are cut off one at a time in 1 inch thickness. These boards do not cross the grain in either direction. The grain is level all the way through from one end to the other provided the log was perfectly straight. If the log was not perfectly straight to start with you will see some grain “run-out”. The boards with run-out should be culled out and not used for shaftwood.
Quarter-sawn lumber has always been in demand where optimum strength is required. It has been used in airplanes and automobile frames.
The boards that result from quarter-sawing are usually cut in 31 inch lengths and then cut into 1x1 turning squares. Any square that reveals grain run-out should be culled at this time although many are not.
The squares should be seasoned for at least 1 ½ years. They should be turned round and seasoned another year. They must be incrementally reduced in size for the next year. They should be dipped in Nelsonite each time they are cut. That is how you get a good shaft that does not warp whether it be Hard Maple, Ash or laminated. You must be patient and you must expect to throw away a lot of material that does not stand up to close scrutiny. The wait will be worth it.
Scott Behrens said:
This topic came up in a conversation I had with Boone Bell, of Bell Forest Products, (a supplier of quality maple to lots of cuemakers) last week at the SBE. He agreed with me that the wood itself is the same, once it's in a dowell form, BUT, where it does come into play is in the cutting of the turning squares. The quartersawn boards are much easier to get the grain aligned properly. You can see the straightness of the grain better in QS maple boards so it can be cut along the grain, not across the grain, which results in grain runout and usually a warped shaft. Once it's in a dowell, it's no longer quarter sawn!
Sherm
So am I interpreting all this correctly to say no matter how it is sawed good shaft wood can be produced, but quarter sawed will produce more good shaft wood?
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Arnot Wadsworth
Guest
cuesmith said:
I would be interested to know how a piece of wood that was quarter-sawn becomes un-quarter-sawn when it is turned round?
The wood I buy from Boone Bell is quarter-sawn.
Arnot Wadsworth said:
So if there is a distinct difference between the two then if someone showed you two shafts with equall amount of growth rings and straight in grain you could tell how the board it came from was cut?
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Arnot Wadsworth
Guest
Canadian cue said:
Yes the one that the growth rings stayed straight would have come from a quarter-sawn piece. When I see the growth rings wander off to the side I know it came from flat-sawed wood.
I have been offered flat sawed shaftwood for $1.00 each but it usually goes for about $4.00 each. The best grade of quarter-sawn shaftwood is $9.00 and up. Of these best grade only about 60% are the kind of shaft I would want in my personal cue.
mjantti said:
You bet your biscuits.
Arnot Wadsworth said:
You are correct in saying that grain runout can be a problem, but it is not caused by using flatsawn lumber, it is caused by selecting boards that were cheaply milled. Flatsawn lumber can be milled with the growth of tree just as quartersawn can be (There is quartersawn lumber out there with grain runout from improper milling also). Anyone planning to make any shaft should be careful with their selection of lumber.
Yes, quartersawn lumber is far superior to flatsawn when you are dealing with flat boards.Arnot Wadsworth said:
Essentially, all shafts should be the equivalent of quartersawn once you are done, depending upon how you look at it, if you have turned them properly. Whether the shaft came from quartersawn or flatsawn lumber, all shafts have two sides that are equivalent to quartersawn and two sides equivalent to flat sawn. I 100% agree that anything with run-out should be pitched.Arnot Wadsworth said:
The key to this is to select the right lumber, and if getting quartersawn lumber helps you do that, then by all means do it, but if you have the opportunity to sort through stuff with your own eyes and know what you are doing, you can put in a bit more time and save a fair amount of money with flatsawn lumber.
Scott
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Arnot Wadsworth
Guest
Scott Behrens said:
I was going to try to discuss this with you but I only have 40 years as a head sawyer/sawmill owner/cuemaker. I give up. You obviously know more than I do.
Arnot Wadsworth said:
Arnie,
The point I was making was that it's not really the fact that the dowell started out as quartersawn that really matters! What matters is the straightness of the grain and perhaps where in the log the dowell originated. A particular dowell could have conceivably been cut from either method. The big advantage of quartersawing is that the sawyer can see the grain in the boards and decide where to make the cuts to get the best yield of straight grained wood.
I only purchase from consciencious suppliers who understand my needs as a cuemaker so I doubt that I've ever purchased shaft wood that wasn't quartersawn, but except for the speculation that "if it's right, it has to have been quartersawn", or the trust you have in your suppliers, there's no way to look at a shaft dowell and visually say it is quartersawn! Once it's round, it's round!
Sherm
TheBook said:
This is basically the same question I asked in another post regarding heartwood vs sapwood. Heartwood being closer to the center of the tree.
The sap runs though the exterior of the tree and closer you get to the center, the more the tree is starved of nutrients to survive. Esentially the center of the tree is like dead wood. If you were to remove a 6 inch band of bark all the way around the tree, the tree would die. The reason for that is because the business part of the tree is the outside where the sap is...that's why it's called sap wood. (if you removed the bark, you've essentially removed the transportation system within the tree to move nutrients and other materials through the tree.) The wood from the center of the tree, also called heartwood as you mentioned in your other post, is very dark and not suitable for any part of the cue. Arnot would be the better man to speak to this with his many years of experience of cutting wood. The preferred tree is the Acer Saccarum commonly known as the sugar maple. This is the tree that produces curly and birdseye maple ( I beleive of the approximately 8 species of maple, it is the only one that will produce this wood) and also happens to be tree that's preferred for shaft wood. I say preferred because some cuemakers I'm sure have no idea what kind of tree some of their wood comes from other than that it's a maple tree. If you get much further south than middle of Michigan, the trees get too much water and grow too quickly, that's why the grain (or growth rings) are further apart and the wood is less dense. The maple trees growing on the granite found in the Canadian Shield have a much harder time with water since they grow much more slowly, they are starved of water and the growth rings are much tighter and the wood is more dense. That is the reason much of the good maple comes from Canada and the upper penninsula of Michigan. This area is dense with maple trees, but more importantly, they growth very slowly and very straight.
Mike
Mike
Cause, or effect?
First let me say I don't know the answer to this question, but it popped into my mind and I wonder what you all think.
When a log go's to mill, if it is not straight, is it worth trying to quarter-saw it? I was thinking to plain-saw a straight log is wasting potential profit and to quarter-saw would be a waste of time. So here is the question, 'Is wood, better because it is quarter-sawn, or quarter-sawn, because it is better wood?'.
I agree once it is round you really can't tell, unless there is run-out present. I have heard this said by many very reputable sources. I have an open mind on this one, but have yet to be convinced otherwise.
Tracy
First let me say I don't know the answer to this question, but it popped into my mind and I wonder what you all think.
When a log go's to mill, if it is not straight, is it worth trying to quarter-saw it? I was thinking to plain-saw a straight log is wasting potential profit and to quarter-saw would be a waste of time. So here is the question, 'Is wood, better because it is quarter-sawn, or quarter-sawn, because it is better wood?'.
I agree once it is round you really can't tell, unless there is run-out present. I have heard this said by many very reputable sources. I have an open mind on this one, but have yet to be convinced otherwise.
Tracy
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Arnot Wadsworth
Guest
RSB-Refugee said:
When you speak about wood for cues only the straightest logs are suitable. Also the logs with the least taper are the most desirable because logs with little taper produce boards with the least crossing of the growth rings. Even if the boards are straight and perfectly quarter-sawn they can still warp some and that is also reflected in the wavy growth rings as you look at the round shaft. You get a perfect shaft you have a real treasure worth many hundreds of dollars.
Let me give you an example of why this is true. Several years ago almost no one had even heard of a small company called "Pieces of Eight." I mention them now only because their mill burned down and they never rebuilt. I was one of their first customers and had a sweet deal with them. He would send me bundles of shafts and let me grade through them and keep what I wanted and send the rest back with a check. Best deal I ever had on shaft wood.mjantti said:
Well I have another cuemaker come by my shop for a period of time helping me set up some equipment and build a few cues. I tell him my shaft source. He then travels up to Maryland and tells all the Baltimore area cuemakers about my great unheard of source. Well they swamp the guy with orders and he tells me he has taken on a bunch of new customers and can't get me my usual batch of a hundred shafts that month.
Then very shortly after he says he can no longer honor our original deal and rases the price 60% in one whack and quits letting me pick through them. He saw that others were willing to pay more and why should he continue to give me this sweet deal. A great deal ruined by revealing my source. Now I have a deal that gets me the overall tightest grained wood that can be found. Maybe not the absolute prettiest, but definitely the tightest. That is how I have him pick it for me. Don't even ask who my source is now, I learned my lesson!
Chris
www.hightowercues.com