Relative Humidity

Eric - Its nice to see someone bring the concepts most woodworkers have been aware of for years, to the cue building world. I think one other thing that needs to be stressed is knowing where your wood comes from. People are always calling me and asking if I want to come and get a tree out of their yard and the first question I ask is "was the tree growing straight". Its a given that if the tree was growing at any angle that one side of the tree is going to be in compression and the other side of the tree is going to be in tension. And large branches are firewood! Someone before me mentioned that wood from the center of a tree is more stable and that is true. It rides the line between being in tension and compression. To maximize your yield though, first make sure the tree was growing straight.

Yes you will always have a slight increase in moisture as you approach the center of the board. However, with the proper moisture reader and the conditioning you referred to, moisture can be equalized and the cutting tests can tell you the relative lack of stresses in a wood.

Allright, my attention span is at an end!

Chris

P.S. - Read Hoadleys Understanding Wood!

Not sure if this link will work but try it out...

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...pLaCCv&sig=AHIEtbQPPY6j9viZex-tV8uDdaVAozKN5g



qbilder said:
Not set in stone by cue makers, but well defined & known in other wood working industries. Stress is the internal tension inside the wood that causes it to curl, cup, warp, crack, etc. It happens when the outer surface of the wood dries before the core, and the shrinkage of the shell compresses the core, thus creating tension. In a mild but exact way, it's like a compressed spring. You ever see mud dry up & crack & distort/curl up around the edges of the cracks? That tension of shrinkage due to moisture loss is what causes the cracking & distortion. No different in wood, except that the wood fibers are bonded together & resist cracking, unlike dirt. So instead of cracking, it warps. Just like fruit withering up as it dehydrates. It alters the shape, and until that shape can be altered, the tension remains. That is stress. It doesn't go away by cutting. It is revealed by cutting. It can only be relieved by equalizing the core of the wood with the surface of the wood.

Here's a round about explanation of stress, easier to understand than my explanation. http://www.modernwoodworking.com/article/conditioning-relieving-those/1112

even better : http://www.modernwoodworking.com/article/conditioning-relieving-those/1112
Click to expand...
 
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Holy Cow Batman,

Re-reading all of this stuff about tension in the wood is making me paranoid. I wonder if using wood rounds or rods effect our tension factors less than the test that always seems to be done on flats or planks. A rod can't cup but a plank can. In mechanical engineering, a rod has far better torsional resistance attributes than a square or square tube by a big factor.

After looking at all of this tech data again, I feel that I should be throwing away more wood than the 6% that is waste now because of movement due to random tension coefficients that as Eric said, "you have no control over". However, 1/3 of my shaft dowels that have cosmetic imperfections in my case go for full core doweling not because of movement. So some fuglies go where the sun don't shine and my rejects data can look skewed if you are also rejecting due to appearance.

I must be the luckiest ignorant CM in the world. I get Kiln Dried planks, bring them to my shop NW of Chicago to acclimate. Those planks are stored indoors not outside in cold storage at my lumber supplier where they don't see rain or snow. After the summer in early fall I get my yearly supply.

I cut squares and then take about 12 to 13 cuts over 5 years. 8 or 9 of those cuts are in the last month while I build the cue for them. In the last month I always put a white water bourn sanding sealer on the shafts that are resting between cuts and get a grain raise. When I take the next cut days later the surface is case hardened because I can hear my saw blade make a higher pitched noise while taking a small kerf cut of .010 or less.

The other day I rejected an old shaft from 2006 5 cuts before final but I can't remember ever rejecting a shaft that was not bad in the first 4 cuts before I put my joints and rings on. I put my rings on, face and thread my shafts before 3/4s of my cuts are made which is different than most peoples timing for this operation.

I don't use 4/4 stock I use 5/4 hand picked Clear, 1/4 sawn, straight grained, heavy maple from UP Mich.

Maybe the 4 seasons here help, I don't know. I air condition my shop and heat it in winter and always keep everything at 70 degrees year round and that's it. I know my relative humidity goes way down in the winter.

My friend Darrin Hill told me that he always brings new shaft wood into his shop in the fall and establishes the full taper cuts before they hang. I have followed his lead in this area. He noticed that cutting initial tapers in the summer gave him shafts that moved more.

If at final, they roll perfect and don't look fuzzy between centers in the lathe I will continue and consider myself pretty lucky.

This is my procedure that I have developed with some help from others. If you are a cue maker and your shafts are moving around maybe there is some step in my process that can help you. If there is something you see that I am doing that can be improved upon, I am all ears.

Thanks,

Rick
 
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scdiveteam said:
Holy Cow Batman,


I don't use 4/4 stock I use 5/4 hand picked Clear, 1/4 sawn, straight grained, heavy maple from UP Mich.

Thanks,

Rick
Click to expand...

Why do you specify quarter sawn? Once you have it squared your gonna have two flat sawn faces and 2 qs. Youd be better off asking for rift sawn. Though in that case, when its doweled it make no difference whether it was flat, qs, or rs. As long as the grain is straight and there is no run out your 5 step ahead of the game.

Geographically speaking there are certain regions of the country where wood is just better. Maple from the UP or canada is one example. Another favorite of mine is cherry. If you have ever used cherry from the Alleghenies you know it hands down machines and handplanes 10 times better than anything else!

Chris
 
hdgis1 said:
Why do you specify quarter sawn? Once you have it squared your gonna have two flat sawn faces and 2 qs. Youd be better off asking for rift sawn. Though in that case, when its doweled it make no difference whether it was flat, qs, or rs. As long as the grain is straight and there is no run out your 5 step ahead of the game.

Geographically speaking there are certain regions of the country where wood is just better. Maple from the UP or canada is one example. Another favorite of mine is cherry. If you have ever used cherry from the Alleghenies you know it hands down machines and handplanes 10 times better than anything else!

Chris
Click to expand...

Hi Chris,

I am not as much an expert at wood as others here but i always thought that Quarter sawn wood is wood that is cut in such a way as to make the lines formed by the grain perpendicular to the faces of the board. When choosing these planks I can view the grain straightness on the side of the plank to avoid run out. I think it's the most stable cut of wood with the lowest expansion/contraction coefficient.

Since you asked the question, here is a site that will explain more than my thoughts on it.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-quartersawn-wood.htm

I knew instrument makers use it for neck & fingerboards and CMs use it for shafts.

Rick G
 
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I ll admit I havent looked at the sight yet, but think of it this way - if you have a 1x1 in front of you and you are looking down on a quarter sawn face, what kind of grain are you gonna have on the left and right faces? Flat sawn. Straight grain is straight grain whether its quarted or flat.

Now take the same 1x1 and make it round. If you look closely at it you will see there are ray flecks at two positions 180 from each other and clearly visable grain lines at the other two positions.

Also look at the ends of the board - in the example of the 1x1 above, qs board will have the growth rings point north and south. Turn it so the rings are facing left and right and now you have a flatsawn board on the top face. Rift sawn the growth rings will run diagonally from corner to corner.

As far as qs being more dimensionally stable. It is. across the width of the board. However it looses some of its stability thickness wise. Musical instrument makers choose it because they arent making rounds and need the dimensional stability across the width of the neck and the fret board. It also makes great drawer fronts as it expands and contract less in the defined opening.

Chris

OK I looked at your link. What is pictured refers to sawing methods. Take a piece of flat sawn maple from the center of the tree (cut out the pith and glue it back together) and your gonna have flat sawn, rift sawn and quarted all in the same piece.

scdiveteam said:
Hi Chris,

I am not as much an expert at wood as others here but i always thought that Quarter sawn wood is wood that is cut in such a way as to make the lines formed by the grain perpendicular to the faces of the board. When choosing these planks I can view the grain straightness on the side of the plank to avoid run out. I think it's the most stable cut of wood with the lowest expansion/contraction coefficient.

Since you asked the question, here is a site that will explain more than my thoughts on it.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-quartersawn-wood.htm

I knew instrument makers use it for neck & fingerboards and CMs use it for shafts.

Rick G
Click to expand...
 
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hdgis1 said:
I ll admit I havent looked at the sight yet, but think of it this way - if you have a 1x1 in front of you and you are looking down on a quarter sawn face, what kind of grain are you gonna have on the left and right faces? Flat sawn. Straight grain is straight grain whether its quarted or flat.

Now take the same 1x1 and make it round. If you look closely at it you will see there are ray flecks at two positions 180 from each other and clearly visable grain lines at the other two positions.

Also look at the ends of the board - in the example of the 1x1 above, qs board will have the growth rings point north and south. Turn it so the rings are facing left and right and now you have a flatsawn board on the top face. Rift sawn the growth rings will run diagonally from corner to corner.

As far as qs being more dimensionally stable. It is. across the width of the board. However it looses some of its stability thickness wise. Musical instrument makers choose it because they arent making rounds and need the dimensional stability across the width of the neck and the fret board. It also makes great drawer fronts as it expands and contract less in the defined opening.

Chris

OK I looked at your link. What is pictured refers to sawing methods. Take a piece of flat sawn maple from the center of the tree (cut out the pith and glue it back together) and your gonna have flat sawn, rift sawn and quarted all in the same piece.
Click to expand...

Chris,

The rift sawn looks to be good also but I have never seen it offered in maple and I really never looked at a cross section diagram until you brought it up today. The planks I buy are cut and sold as quarter sawn lumber and I think I will keep what is working for me going in that direction. Even though it is quarter sawn, you still have to read the board to get the best of the best. I was lucky, a chicago cue maker from the 1970s works at the place I buy and he gave me a lesson on how to pick planks on my first visit there. ( Thanks for the lesson Mark):bow-down:

Thanks,

Rick
 
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Rick, the reason you are getting good yield is likely because whoever is milling & drying the lumber knows what they are doing and are producing quality lumber, rather than quick lumber. Quarter sawing reduces the stress because of the way it's milled. So right off the mill, before drying, the quarter sawed wood is much less able to incur stress than flat sawed. Frankly put, it never has the high stress that plain sawn wood gets. Combine that with proper drying & stress relieving, and you have dimensionally stable lumber that can be formed, cut, resawn into any shape without much worry. That's why your yield is high. Go get some lumber from another supplier, especially flat sawn lumber, & see how good of a yield you get.

The flip side of that is that quarter sawing creates a lot of waste, and low yield of lumber per log. The boards are narrower, too. As such, it costs about twice as much as plain sawn maple. But it's best for cues.

As for maple being better in some regions than others, I don't agree. I have often seen maple vary greatly in quality in a single tract. One personal experience was in Ohio. I was cutting on a ridge top & was finding the maple to be relatively light weight, large heart, ring shake, etc. It was even full of mineral. In the bottom of the ravine, on the beginning slope of another hill, the maple was incredibly hard, tight grain, heavy, & the heart on every butt log was no larger than a $.50 coin. It was also clean & white, absolutely no mineral. Every shaft from those logs weighed in at over 4oz., where the wood from the top of the hill was nothing but pallet grade lumber or barn flooring. I'm talking two areas not but maybe 200yds. apart. I have seen maple from UP that was no better than the crap I cut on top of the hill, and I have seen some that was just like the stuff I cut at the bottom of the hill. Same with IN, KY, WV, PA, NY, VT, NH, & ME. My personal experiences have led me to believe that specific growing conditions are what determine wood quality more so than region. Things like soil type, soil quality, soil moisture, shade, sun, wind exposure, surrounding vegetation, etc. dictate how the tree grows. Region merely dictates length of growing season, to an extent. I would bet money that a tree growing in sandy, rocky soil on a ridge top in GA, surrounded by evergreens, would grow significantly slower than a tree growing in a moist but well drained open field of grass in UP Michigan. Generally speaking, MI has longer winters so logically the trees grow slower. But only if all other specifics are equal. Just some thought....
 
Eric,

That why I said I was lucky. I saw the kiln and talk to the guy up there and he was very specific about all the details that you speak of. He was going over the top of my head at the time but I do remember him taking about re hydrating after drawing down.

Thanks,

Rick
 
qbilder said:
Rick, the reason you are getting good yield is likely because whoever is milling & drying the lumber knows what they are doing and are producing quality lumber, rather than quick lumber. Quarter sawing reduces the stress because of the way it's milled. So right off the mill, before drying, the quarter sawed wood is much less able to incur stress than flat sawed. Frankly put, it never has the high stress that plain sawn wood gets. Combine that with proper drying & stress relieving, and you have dimensionally stable lumber that can be formed, cut, resawn into any shape without much worry. That's why your yield is high. Go get some lumber from another supplier, especially flat sawn lumber, & see how good of a yield you get.

The flip side of that is that quarter sawing creates a lot of waste, and low yield of lumber per log. The boards are narrower, too. As such, it costs about twice as much as plain sawn maple. But it's best for cues.

As for maple being better in some regions than others, I don't agree. I have often seen maple vary greatly in quality in a single tract. One personal experience was in Ohio. I was cutting on a ridge top & was finding the maple to be relatively light weight, large heart, ring shake, etc. It was even full of mineral. In the bottom of the ravine, on the beginning slope of another hill, the maple was incredibly hard, tight grain, heavy, & the heart on every butt log was no larger than a $.50 coin. It was also clean & white, absolutely no mineral. Every shaft from those logs weighed in at over 4oz., where the wood from the top of the hill was nothing but pallet grade lumber or barn flooring. I'm talking two areas not but maybe 200yds. apart. I have seen maple from UP that was no better than the crap I cut on top of the hill, and I have seen some that was just like the stuff I cut at the bottom of the hill. Same with IN, KY, WV, PA, NY, VT, NH, & ME. My personal experiences have led me to believe that specific growing conditions are what determine wood quality more so than region. Things like soil type, soil quality, soil moisture, shade, sun, wind exposure, surrounding vegetation, etc. dictate how the tree grows. Region merely dictates length of growing season, to an extent. I would bet money that a tree growing in sandy, rocky soil on a ridge top in GA, surrounded by evergreens, would grow significantly slower than a tree growing in a moist but well drained open field of grass in UP Michigan. Generally speaking, MI has longer winters so logically the trees grow slower. But only if all other specifics are equal. Just some thought....
Click to expand...

Eric - Is this lack a stress a result of the sawing technique or the generally smaller boards one gets when quartering a log?

I agree to an extent about the region thing, however, on average one region can and does produce better wood than another. You can create the perfect environment, but seasonal change is gonna have a tremendous effect on the density of the wood. Isnt density what everyone is looking for in a shaft?

Chris
 
scdiveteam said:
Chris,

The rift sawn looks to be good also but I have never seen it offered in maple and I really never looked at a cross section diagram until you brought it up today. The planks I buy are cut and sold as quarter sawn lumber and I think I will keep what is working for me going in that direction. Even though it is quarter sawn, you still have to read the board to get the best of the best. I was lucky, a chicago cue maker from the 1970s works at the place I buy and he gave me a lesson on how to pick planks on my first visit there. ( Thanks for the lesson Mark):bow-down:

Thanks,

Rick
Click to expand...

Rick - Why is this mill quartering maple?

Chris
 
Eric,

Thats why I said I was lucky. I saw the kiln and talked to the guy up there and he was very specific about all the details that you speak of. He was going over the top of my head at the time but I do remember him taking about re hydrating after drawing down.

Thanks,

Rick
 
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hdgis1 said:
You can create the perfect environment, but seasonal change is gonna have a tremendous effect on the density of the wood. Isnt density what everyone is looking for in a shaft?
Click to expand...

Why would seasonal change have any effect on density? Seasonal change, AFAIK, only dictates growing season.
 
Chris,

AFAIK = As Far As I Know, AFAIK.

I have shafts with 12 GPI and Shafts with 20 GPI and they are both over 4.0 oz. Density can have but doesn't have to have a correlation to GPI. There are seasons with droughts or excessive rainfall. Each year and each region is different.

UV exposure is a horse of a different color. On years where there is an solar eclipse, the trees will grow different because they get 20 minutes less sunlight especially in the lower latitudes. That doesn't sound like a lot of time but it can throw the photosynthesis process off by months and the growth rings will be skinnier that season. :rotflmao1::kma:

Rick
 
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scdiveteam said:
...Density can have but doesn't have to have a correlation to GPI. ...

Rick
Click to expand...

Density is inversely proportional to ring count for hard maple, but weakly so. Many people who think the super high ring count shafts are automatically the heavier ones are mistaken about the relationship.

Kelly
 
Seasonal change merely dictates length of growing season, nothing more. Growth rare is determined by soil composition, sunlight exposure, water, and even competition from surrounding vegetation. If all of this is equal then the area with the longest summer produces the tree with fewest grain lines per inch. But rarely are these things ever equal, so growth rate is minimally determined by seasonal change.

Density has little to do with ring count. The overall health & genetics of the tree control that. Higher grain lines usually means slower, steadier growth, which loosely translates into higher stability. But that is even a stretch & means nothing if you can't see where the tree came from.

IMO, the best trees are undergrowth trees that do not get enough sunlight to sprout branches, so it's a long straight trunk to the top with a few thin branches & leaves. They grow in dense forest, almost always shaded by other trees & the terrain, grow on the northeast face of the hill (gets the least sun through the day), has plenty of rain water but well drained, and a nutrient rich soil. This local specific criteria is what I have found to produce the absolute finest wood. The trees grow slow & steady with the pith set in the center of the log, evenly spaced growth rings, straight logs. More northern climates dictate a slower growing season, but it's only a very small part of the equation.

Now the trick is knowing where your wood came from & what that tree looked liked. This you have to entrust with the supplier, who has to entrust the loggers. Loggers don't care about cues & shafts, and don't have time to search for these specific trees. It's not cost effective. They cut everything & the broker buys what he feels is good logs at auction.....but even he has no clue where the tree actually came from. A log truck hauls the logs to the mill for processing. What you get is a mix of great logs to shit logs, and once milled & dried, the wood looks exactly the same. By the time it gets processed into shaft squares or dowels, you have no clue what so ever where the wood really came from or how good it is.
 
qbilder said:
Seasonal change merely dictates length of growing season, nothing more. Growth rare is determined by soil composition, sunlight exposure, water, and even competition from surrounding vegetation. If all of this is equal then the area with the longest summer produces the tree with fewest grain lines per inch. But rarely are these things ever equal, so growth rate is minimally determined by seasonal change.

Density has little to do with ring count. The overall health & genetics of the tree control that. Higher grain lines usually means slower, steadier growth, which loosely translates into higher stability. But that is even a stretch & means nothing if you can't see where the tree came from.

IMO, the best trees are undergrowth trees that do not get enough sunlight to sprout branches, so it's a long straight trunk to the top with a few thin branches & leaves. They grow in dense forest, almost always shaded by other trees & the terrain, grow on the northeast face of the hill (gets the least sun through the day), has plenty of rain water but well drained, and a nutrient rich soil. This local specific criteria is what I have found to produce the absolute finest wood. The trees grow slow & steady with the pith set in the center of the log, evenly spaced growth rings, straight logs. More northern climates dictate a slower growing season, but it's only a very small part of the equation.

Now the trick is knowing where your wood came from & what that tree looked liked. This you have to entrust with the supplier, who has to entrust the loggers. Loggers don't care about cues & shafts, and don't have time to search for these specific trees. It's not cost effective. They cut everything & the broker buys what he feels is good logs at auction.....but even he has no clue where the tree actually came from. A log truck hauls the logs to the mill for processing. What you get is a mix of great logs to shit logs, and once milled & dried, the wood looks exactly the same. By the time it gets processed into shaft squares or dowels, you have no clue what so ever where the wood really came from or how good it is.
Click to expand...

Wow,

Eric, I cut and paste the wood shit you talk on these threads in a wood info file and I will admit that you are very consistent in your dissertations. Many of your threads reveals a new small detail or two. I review them from time to time as I wish to know as much as I can about wood just so I don't look stupid when some customer asks a question of me as a cue maker.

I don't need to be an expert, I just don't want to be a dumb ass. There is a lot to understand, especially as it relates to our profession.

Thank you professor for what you bring to this forum, I for one am in your debt.

Rick
 
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