hi,heard a story recently about how japanese carpenters can tell from the grain how a piece of lumber grew in the tree. ie which end was towards the top of the tree and which was down. anybody know anything about this.
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Maybe they can, but why does it matter? I like the grain to look pretty, not right side up.
they say it gives more strength, for framing etc.
gives more strength
what do they do about horizontal elements? sorry, but if up/down makes the signifigant difference in 'strength', I think the design is too close to the edge - -for visual applications, I could believe consistancy in orientation could be estectically signifigant - I use a lot of wood I cut off my farm, and it's generally not too difficult to tell which end is which, but I orient to please my eye, without consideration to which way nature oriented it -
Ok David, but how do you tell the difference.
Yes it's true. And when they build with metal studs, they can tell whether the steel was recycled from Fords or Chevy's too.
Or from some old WWII tank
At least they recycle.
Sounds reasonable to me. If you think of a tree as a series of cones, each representing one years growth, observation of the ring pattern can give you a pretty good idea of how the board fit into the tree. It would be easiest on a board from a perfectly straight tree, but I imagine that after lots of experience the origin of just about any piece would be identifiable.
hmmm so maybe the grain is closer on one end than the other !!!! I know there are other variables which create this but maybe there can be a variance in one piece of lumber. or maybe one end shows more rings???. could check this out. Thanks will keep looking.
OK, how about this:
From the curvature of the rings, you can tell the inside from the outside of the log. Then look at the knots that go through. They represent branches, and the ends of the knots on the outside will be higher than the ends of the knots on the inside, because the branches grow slightly upward. Small knots will be more numerous on the outside, because they represent branches that started after the inside was already grown.
Sound reasonable?
Of course it doesn't really matter which way around you use the wood. If it did, the engineering numbers given for each lumber grade would be given twice, once for right side up, and again for upside down. ;-)
-- J.S.
Gosh, don't you just KNOW? I mean you hear "with the grain" all the time. That means up the tree, in my mind. If you tried to whittle the wood, it's easy one way and hard the other way. If you run a piece of straight grained wood through a sharp jointer, one way it tears out, and the other way it goes smooth. You only get splinters if you let your hand slide down the tree. Unless it's all chattered from a bad planer or something, I guess.
I suppose the explanations about studying the ring size in the end grain and the direction of the knots is a rigorous way to analyze it. But to me it's just like knowing which way to pet a dog. I just always go from head to tail. If you pet a dog the other way, it just doesn't feel right. A tree is a directional living thing. It's just about the same as a dog. I don't know, did you have a chow or a poodle as a kid and you just don't have a feel for this kind of thing? I had a labrador retriever on a pine tree farm. I guess I just learned one more thing to be grateful for about my fortunate youth.
Good luck learning to read your lumber!
B
Is your sarcasm also a product of your fortunate youth.