Quartersawn Wood For Neck

[ShadesOfGrey]

How important is having your neckwood quartersawn?

I guess it's pretty important for say mahagony, but can I cope with slabsawn maple for example?

Reason I'm asking this is that there is a nice local lumber supplier here that has decent prices and good service. Their inventory is mostly is more of a genera purposes / construction types of wood, altough they carry a few woodtypes suitable as tonewood. Mahagony, Maple, Cherry, Red Cedar etc. However, I dont think they have any of that in a quartersawn.

My other option would be to go to another shop I know. It's a more exclusive lumbershop that sells just about any type of wood relevant to instrument building or , have a lot of figured woods, quartersawn stuff etc.

Problem is that they overcharge heavily, even the standard lumber. The service is pretty bad, the location is very difficult to get there and a lot of their wood of in so-so condition even though you pay premium prices for it. The only reason they get away with it is the fact that they have only one competitor in the whole country, and it is literaly on the other side of the country.

And the other option I like even less, buying wood from the internet. I at least want to see & test the lumber before I buy it.

So that brings me back to my question. I dont think slab sawn mahagony is going to be that great for a neck, but maple is pretty hard even slab sawn. So will that be stable enough, or do I realy, *realy* want quartersawn enough to go that the expensive shop or order from the internet?

[WezV]

you got it pretty close in the second line of your post.

most fender necks are flatsawn and it works fine in as long as its not stupidly thin

laminating necks gives you more options with flatsawn and riftsawn woods, even mahogany - adding carbon fibre reinforcement increases your options yet again.

the one thing i always go for is balance. i want symmetry when looking at the end, so if its rift sawn i want to laminate it with some symmetry ,

like this:

///////////\\\\\\\\\\\

or more often:

///////\\ll//\\\\\\\

and dont forget that flatsawn flipped 90 degrees is essentially quartered. a wider flatsawn plank of mahogany can be sliced in 3, flip thenm up and glue for a 3-piece quatered neck blank

[ihocky2]

There are some studies that show the strength between quarter and flat sawn is not much different. But some studies show that it is. Pick your preference. But a hard fact is that wood will swell more with seasonal changes radially than tangentially meaning that quartersawn will be more stable to movement than flat sawn over time.

[Prostheta]

Simple. Mechanical stability is more important than cosmetics. If the first one is satisfied, then you can do far more with the second. Some woods look far better on the flat.

[Woodenspoke]

you got it pretty close in the second line of your post.

most fender necks are flatsawn and it works fine in as long as its not stupidly thin

laminating necks gives you more options with flatsawn and riftsawn woods, even mahogany - adding carbon fibre reinforcement increases your options yet again.

the one thing i always go for is balance. i want symmetry when looking at the end, so if its rift sawn i want to laminate it with some symmetry ,

like this:

///////////\\\\\\\\\\\

or more often:

///////\\ll//\\\\\\\

and dont forget that flatsawn flipped 90 degrees is essentially quartered. a wider flatsawn plank of mahogany can be sliced in 3, flip thenm up and glue for a 3-piece quatered neck blank

+1

I always buy flatsaw boards and glue together two pieces with the graing moving in opposite directions. This counteracts any forces from one side or the other. It does create a center line but I found that an acceptable if not pleasant apperance in the neck.

[ShadesOfGrey]

Simple. Mechanical stability is more important than cosmetics. If the first one is satisfied, then you can do far more with the second. Some woods look far better on the flat.

Cosmetics isnt really the priority for me if I have to use flatsawn.

Laminating the neck.. hmm, I kinda took it for granted you would do that.

But maybe it's because every kinda of book or tutorial or work-in-progress on the topic I've seen involves laminating, so it kinda automaticaly figures in the mental building plan.

I have a few planks of maple and wenge for laminates laying around, and also a paduak and rosewood fretboard blanks that are quite wider than needed and might be cool if enough of it remains after sawing to laminate the neck with.

Also, Wezv mentions carbon fibre reinforcement.. do you mean like a trusrod, or something else?

[WezV]

Also, Wezv mentions carbon fibre reinforcement.. do you mean like a trusrod, or something else?

soemthing else - generally a pair of CF rods either side of the truss rod

[B. Aaron]

There are some studies that show the strength between quarter and flat sawn is not much different. But some studies show that it is. Pick your preference. But a hard fact is that wood will swell more with seasonal changes radially than tangentially meaning that quartersawn will be more stable to movement than flat sawn over time.

This is pretty spot on, and it's easy to see why their results contradict each other. Most of the studies (that I've read) done by instrument makers to find out which grain orientation is stronger have only included a few pieces of wood. The largest sample size I've ever seen was 12 pieces of wood, all from different trees, and none of those pieces were actually tested for stiffness in both grain orientations. I've even seen one study that only involved THREE pieces of wood from the same tree. Having such a small sample size makes the studies nearly useless. It's just lousy science.

On the other hand, data from people who study forestry and lumber (instead of building guitars) for a living says that neither orientation is consistently & statistically stiffer/stronger than the other. Sometimes one is, sometimes the other is; it varies from tree to tree, and from what part of the tree the wood came. There is more variation in density, strength, and stiffness between wood from the bottom and top of the tree (and from tree to tree as well) than there is between different grain orientations of the same piece of wood.

I like what Ervin Somogyi says on the subject: even if it's not the strongest, quartersawn wood (or more accurately, vertically grained wood) is the most problem-free wood to work with in instrument construction. Whether it's vertically grained because it was sawed that way in the first place or because you just laminated it that way makes very little difference, AFAIK.

[doug]

you got it pretty close in the second line of your post.

most fender necks are flatsawn and it works fine in as long as its not stupidly thin

laminating necks gives you more options with flatsawn and riftsawn woods, even mahogany - adding carbon fibre reinforcement increases your options yet again.

the one thing i always go for is balance. i want symmetry when looking at the end, so if its rift sawn i want to laminate it with some symmetry ,

like this:

///////////\\\\\\\\\\\

or more often:

///////\\ll//\\\\\\\

and dont forget that flatsawn flipped 90 degrees is essentially quartered. a wider flatsawn plank of mahogany can be sliced in 3, flip thenm up and glue for a 3-piece quatered neck blank

WezV nailed it... woodworking 101 - Counteracting wood movement. The addition of 2 or 3 thin layers of another, maybe harder, wood really increases the neck's longitudinal strength.

Actually I think there is some truth to the idea of a board resisting bending force more or less depending on the direction of the grain in relation to the force applied. Not all woods seem to follow that rule of thumb though, but the softer ones like mahogany, walnut, or poplar etc. do. Tighter grained woods (small growth rings) like bloodwood, bubinga and older growth maple varieties, don't have much appreciable difference in the context of small stuff like a guitar neck. Just stuff I've noticed over the years making fine furniture etc. Maybe no real scientific facts back it up, but then again I'm not a scientist... :o)

[Prostheta]

Being an avowed career amateur, the phrase 'most problem free wood' is as pragmatic as it gets. I have to quote Carl Thompson; when asked what woods he uses, like tonewoods or grain direction, he answers "good wood". I personally cannot afford as much choice in my wood selections as i would like, but choosing well makes all the difference. Having the free choice of quartered or flat is a bonus for me. I have never had a neck that i couldn't control though. Good wood. From the good tree, straighticara grainularum

[avengers63]

Something else to consider: wood can move after it's cut.

I picked up a 8/4 canarywood board from Woodcraft probably 4 months ago. 2/3 of it has been sitting in my house since then, so it's well adjusted to my humidity. The other pieces I cut from it and planed into 1 3/4" squares did nothing. This morning, I cut off a 30" piece so I could make a neck blank from it. One face jot jointes, then the edges so I had a flat & square surface to re-saw on.

These are the boards laying "flat" on the bandsaw table with a straight piece of poplar pressed on one end.

BING! One half of the board bowed, the other didn't.

So I had good wood, acclimatized, and NO signs of movement with prior machining of the same piece, but there it is anyway. You just never know what it's going to to until you cut it.

FWIW: I'll be doing the rough carve on this one BEFORE the f/b is attached, just in case.

[doug]

And there you have it... Wood's wood... the saw tells all. :o)

[B. Aaron]

Being an avowed career amateur, the phrase 'most problem free wood' is as pragmatic as it gets. I have to quote Carl Thompson; when asked what woods he uses, like tonewoods or grain direction, he answers "good wood". I personally cannot afford as much choice in my wood selections as i would like, but choosing well makes all the difference. Having the free choice of quartered or flat is a bonus for me. I have never had a neck that i couldn't control though. Good wood. From the good tree, straighticara grainularum

Yeah, that's a good point too. The straighter the grain, the better to reduce the likelihood of warping. Taking two incredibly crooked-grained pieces of wood and gluing them together in opposite directions is just asking for trouble.

[ihocky2]

Something else to consider: wood can move after it's cut.

I picked up a 8/4 canarywood board from Woodcraft probably 4 months ago. 2/3 of it has been sitting in my house since then, so it's well adjusted to my humidity. The other pieces I cut from it and planed into 1 3/4" squares did nothing. This morning, I cut off a 30" piece so I could make a neck blank from it. One face jot jointes, then the edges so I had a flat & square surface to re-saw on.

These are the boards laying "flat" on the bandsaw table with a straight piece of poplar pressed on one end.

BING! One half of the board bowed, the other didn't.

So I had good wood, acclimatized, and NO signs of movement with prior machining of the same piece, but there it is anyway. You just never know what it's going to to until you cut it.

FWIW: I'll be doing the rough carve on this one BEFORE the f/b is attached, just in case.

It could be just coincidence, but I've had the most trouble with lumber from Wood Craft. Kiln dried from the local mill, never had a single piece move. Lumber from ebay, only 1 or 2 pieces moved a little and never moved again afte adjusting to the climate change. 2 pieces bought from someone in Arizona shipped to Pennsylvania in the summer, so hot and dry to less hot and very humid and they never moved. Every piece bought at the local Wood Craft moves a ton when I get it home and most of them move a little more when I cut them.

For me Wood Craft has officially become Tool Craft, I won't buy lumber from them again.