Quarter Sawing White Oak

[Jim Spencer]

Quarter Sawing White oak on a Logosol chainsaw mill.
What thickness would be best to saw the boards and end up with 3/4" after kiln drying and planing?
I had a 34" oak I cut down and decided to quarter saw it and found that it cuts much easier when cutting this way across the growth rings.
I cut (split) the (4) 8' logs into 4 pcs and cut boards from the bottom and rotate the piece that is left after each cut.  I have cut a few thousand board ft. just slabbing but never liked cutting white oak because it is very hard but quarter sawing the cut seems to be much easier on the saw and cuts much faster.
Has anyone experienced this or is this just my imagination?
Jim

[Dan_Shade]

i would recommend at least 1 1/8" thick when green for quartersawing.  anything less, you may end up shy when you plane it out.

could the easier sawing have to do with the width of the board being more narrow while quartersawing?

[Gblombo]

1-3/16.  Quartersawn material will shrink more in thickness and less in width relative to plain sawn.

Have fun.

Greg

[woodmills1]

I would say yes to the thinner widths, once you rip a big white oak log you will agree.

[ladylake]

 Jim  If you have some nice white oak log that will QS, I'd hire a bandsaw to saw them. The extra boards over a chainsaw mill should more than pay for the sawing. QS WO fetches a good price. With a accurate bandsaw I'd saw 1" thick, I saw mine 1" and have no trouble cleaning up with the planer to just over 3/4 unless a board cups bad, then I rip in half with the table saw before planing.  QS doesn't cup much either. I've QS some at 5/4 that cleaned up at a little over 1-1/16  at 6-8% moister.    Steve 

[Dan_Shade]

I quarter-sawed a bunch of red oak at 1 1/16 when I first started milling, none of it will clean up to 3/4".  It's extremely frustrating when that happens.

your mileage may vary

[backwoods sawyer]

I quarter-sawed a bunch of red oak at 1 1/16 when I first started milling, none of it will clean up to 3/4".  It's extremely frustrating when that happens.

your mileage may vary

Wow, that is a lot for Oak. The only wood that I have had move that much is Madrone.

[ladylake]

I find QS WO to be real stable with no cupping and I don't like to make extra passes through the planer just making more shavings.   Steve

[Dan_Shade]

quartersawn wood shrinks more in it's thickness than it does it's width.

I have some quartersawn red oak still rough sawn.  I sawed it to 1 3/16 using woodmizer's simple setworks.  checking a few boards that have been kiln dried, they are all less than 1 1/8. They mayl plane out to a full inch, but it's doubtful, they'll likely hit 15/16 when finished.

My opinion is that it's not worth the risk of having thin boards, trying to get a half board more.

As I said before, your mileage may vary.  If I'm sawing good stuff for a customer, I try to get them to let me cut it to 1 1/8.  scant boards are bad.

[ladylake]

   1-3/16 to 15/16 is 1/4"      Same as 1" to 3/4"  and there's less wood to shrink with 1" boards. sawing to thick just makes more planer shavings and more work.   Steve

[red oaks lumber]

a board that didn't cleanup, is all wasted work, wood ,energy. i always saw thicker, in case the blade dips, or make a small math error you still have mat'l to plane off.

[ladylake]

If 1 board out of 50 doesn't clean up we should saw  them all to thick to save that 1 board, not over here. Being a woodworker also there a lot of places to use that board that doesn't clean up.   Steve

[nas]

If 1 board out of 50 doesn't clean up we should saw  them all to thick to save that 1 board, not over here. Being a woodworker also there a lot of places to use that board that doesn't clean up.   Steve

My thoughts exactly.  Are we going to loose 1 in 9 to save 1 in 50?

Nick

[Dan_Shade]

It's not 1 in 50, it was all of the ones I sawed out.

If you have good material that can be quartersawn, it is absolutely not worth the risk of having thin boards after they dry, and it can easily happen if they are only sawn an inch thick.

Draw up some circles and figure out how many boards you'll lose if you saw them thicker than an inch.  If you are quartersawing, you'll probably find that you won't lose any boards if you cut the boards a bit on the thick side.

I "lost" 500bf of nice red oak quartersawn boards from a 36" diameter log.  Live and learn.

To be blunt, I consider advise to saw anything thinner than 1 1/8 to be bad advice, even if flatsawn, and especially bad advise if quartersawn.  I'm adamant about that with my customers.  I won't do it, unless they are sheathing a barn.

[Chico]

exactly rt Dan-Shade the most exp mills in the industry allow 1/8 esp on hi grade h/w they may fudge on 2com and below if it's headed for flooring

[backwoods sawyer]

It's not 1 in 50, it was all of the ones I sawed out.

If you have good material that can be quartersawn, it is absolutely not worth the risk of having thin boards after they dry, and it can easily happen if they are only sawn an inch thick.

Draw up some circles and figure out how many boards you'll lose if you saw them thicker than an inch.  If you are quartersawing, you'll probably find that you won't lose any boards if you cut the boards a bit on the thick side.

I "lost" 500bf of nice red oak quartersawn boards from a 36" diameter log.  Live and learn.

To be blunt, I consider advise to saw anything thinner than 1 1/8 to be bad advice, even if flatsawn, and especially bad advise if quartersawn.  I'm adamant about that with my customers.  I won't do it, unless they are sheathing a barn.

You seem pretty adamant about that.
I am not real certain as to why though. If the customer is using the wood for his own use and is willing to work with ¾”-13/16”-7/8”-or 15/16” as a finished size, then why would you insist on milling 1 1/8”?
That is unless he is selling the wood commercially in which case of coarse you would mill to the industry standard.

[scsmith42]

Interesting comments from across the US.

Like Dan, I mill to 5/4 on quartersawn, and a lot of it has to go to 3/4" when going through the jointer/planer.  If I were simply double planing, I could get a thicker board out of it.

80% of my board widths are 10" or wider, and I prefer not to resaw it into narrower boards.  For my ultra-wide QS boards (16" - 20"), I'm thinking of milling to 6/4 in order to make sure that they will joint/plane out to 3/4" or 7/8".

[ladylake]

6/4 to 3/4. you got to be kidding, I was brought up not to waste and unless you can get as much for planer shaving as you can get for QS WO boards that's all your doing. I've sawn everything for years at 1" that gets planed to 13/16 or 3/4 with no complaints including a flooring company that said maybe 1 out of 50 don't clean up on part of a board. Never has a customer call back and say they were sawed to thin. I can see if your cutting wavy where you would want to saw thicker or for a commercial outfit that demanded it. I've even sold a few loads to a commercial door company that let me saw at 1" with a band saw if they were uniform and straight .   Steve

[Magicman]

I saw what the customer ask for.  Wider boards are sometimes sawed thicker if they think that it may cup.  Even then, the customer makes the decision.

[Dan_Shade]

I've never had a customer bulk when I explained my reasoning to him. 

At the end of the day, they're paying the bill, so I do what they want.  But I certainly don't want an unhappy customer a year from now with a board that cleans up to 11/16 because I cut it too thin.