Types of Sawn Lumber - Wood Essentials
Deciding on what lumber to use for a project. A beginner doesn’t care, wood is wood after all. The only difference is price and appearance.
After a project or two you begin to realize there is more to it. Hardwood doesn’t mean flooring and there is a big difference between a 2x4 and rift sawn white oak. Knowing the difference and understanding where certain types of wood should be used will elevate your woodworking.
Here I’ll break down the common lumber types and what you should consider in your next project.
Sawn Lumber
There are three basic ways a sawyer can mill a tree. By mill I mean cut the tree along it’s length into boards. Those three are:
Plain Sawn
Quarter Sawn
Rift Sawn
Technically there is a fourth, called rotary cut, but it’s only used for plywood. We’ll talk about that in the future.
Plain Sawn
Plain Sawn log has horizontal cuts from edge to edge creating wide boards
Plain sawn is the type of boards you typically think of. Those long cathedral peaks found oh so often in oak doors and paneling is a sign of plain sawn lumber. To saw, a mill cuts all the way across the board, creating planks. This is also the same as live sawn or live edge lumber with the lumber spanning the entire log.
Advantages
Cost Effective. Plain sawn boards are easier to cut and cheaper to produce.
Low Waste. Plain sawing requires very little waste, the virtually the entire log, minus the slivers at the top and bottom, are turned into usable lumber.
Large. Due to the cutting process, boards are wider than other types of sawn lumber.
Drawbacks
Movement. Due to the grain, plain sawn boards are highly susceptible to twisting, cupping, and warping, especially in boards cut near the edges of the logs.
Look. Grain structure will vary across the board and often have a wavy pattern which can be less desirable for certain parts of your project.
Any of these three lumber types can be used in any application. A plainsawn board can make a table leg just as a rift sawn can make a table top. These uses are my recommendations based on cost and aesthetics, but make your own decisions based on budget and the look you are going for in your work.
Uses
Plain sawn boards have more visual interest compared to the other two types, hence they are great to highlight as panels. Plus, given the lower cost and larger width, they are a great choice for things like table tops (with proper support) where fewer boards to glue together is easier. Any use where boards support and fight against cupping makes great options for plain sawn lumber.
Table tops
Panels such as raised panels in cabinet doors or side panels of a bookshelf
Drawers
Benches and chair seats
Additional Note on Plain Sawn Lumber (add picture of plainsawn board)
Expanding on the movement, you’ll notice that the middle boards have the rings running fairly straight from line to line, but near the top and bottom they run along the board, especially in the middle. This grain orientation in the middle of the board creates those cathedrals, but also want to pull the edges toward the center of the tree, rounding the boards.
Early on in your woodworking journey you will likely use mostly plain sawn boards as they are the less expensive option and widely available at home centers. There is nothing wrong with that, just take extra precautions when working with plain sawn boards to mitigate wood movement, such as cutting the boards in half to reduce the woods tendency to curl inward.
Quarter Sawn
A Quarter Sawn log is first cut into quarters, then sawn to keep the growth rings running from edge to edge, mostly.
Quarter sawn lumber applies knowledge of wood movement and mitigates it at the mill. By sawing the wood in quarters, the boards come out with growth rings running mostly across the board, resulting in straight grain that is less prone to cupping versus it’s plain sawn counterparts.
Advantages
Medullary Rays, those light spots, are the veins of the tree, transporting water and nutrients from the center to the edges.
Stable. Increased stability and less likely to cup than plain sawn due to the growth ring orientation.
Look. Quarter sawn boards have straight grain along the face. This makes the look of the boards more consistent and easier to match
Medullary Rays. When quartering, especially oak, it exposes rays in the wood that go tangentially to the grain.
Drawbacks
Cost. More expensive due to the additional labor and complexity in sawing.
Waste. There is more waste in the sawing process. In the picture you can see boards coming to a point, those points are sawn off as waste, resulting in lower log yield.
Smaller boards. Given the sawing method, the boards are not as wide.
One side isn’t as straight. While quarter sawn lumber provides straight grain, you’ll notice in the picture, the top and bottoms of the quarters still has curved grain, meaning those boards may still cup and the grain will not be straight and match from one side of the board to the other.
Uses
Cabinetry and furniture
Flooring
Cutting boards
Quarter sawn and rift sawn are similar and will function the same. The main difference is those medullary rays. If you don’t like them, spend the extra money on rift sawn, if you do then quarter is for you.
Rift Sawn
Rift Sawn boards are cut perpendicular to the grain, meaning the growth rings go straight through the board, decreasing the likelihood of cupping.
Trees are circular with the rings going around a center pith. Rift sawing cuts boards in a circle around the tree, cutting the growth rings in a way that they end up straight through the board and are even on both sides. This produces the straightest, most stable lumber of all sawing methods, but at the highest price.
Advantages
Stable. The most stable cutting method with little to no cupping.
Straight. Grain runs straight along the board length and matches both sides, great for areas where a board will be exposed on all four sides such as a chair leg.
No Medullary Rays. Some people don’t like the rays exposed in quarter sawn lumber. Rift sawn hides the rays and has true, straight grain only.
Drawbacks
Cost. Even more expensive than quarter sawn because the sawing process is more labor intensive.
Waste. Even more waste than quarter sawn as spaces between boards is lost as waste.
Small Boards. Boards yielded are similar in size but slightly smaller than what’s available in a quarter sawn board. The smaller boards mean even more wood is lost to waste.
Uses
Table and chair legs
Cabinet door frames
Musical instrument necks
While rift sawn boards have distinct advantages, they can be boring. Their straight grain is stable, great for the rails and styles of a cabinet door or the legs of a table, but they don’t have much figure and visual interest. There’s a reason live edge (plain sawn) tables are all the rage, it’s because there is texture, variation, and defects. But all that interesting stuff is less stable and not suited in all applications.
What Now?
Now that you have knowledge of wood types and where to use each, go practice. When you go find lumber for your next project grab some quarter or rift sawn lumber for the legs and plain sawn for the top. Pay attention to the grain and see how to orient a board in such a way that the straight grain goes along the leg, giving a pleasant and strong straight grain from top to bottom.
Or experiment. Grab a wide piece of plain sawn pine from Home Depot and spray one side down with water. Come back the next day and notice how the board went from flat to distinctly cupped. Now cut the board in half and notice how it lies mostly flat again.
The more you understand what wood naturally wants to do the better equipped you will be to use this natural product to the best of it’s abilities, making your furniture last longer and look even better.