Quarter sawn oak is less susceptible to shrinkage and swelling.
Quarter sawing is the way to create the best quality oak lumber. Unfortunately, this technique also creates more waste and takes more time. Most oak lumber today is plain sawn, meaning it is sliced into pieces like a loaf of bread. This produces more lumber out of a single log, but makes it more prone to shrinkage, swelling and warping.
Instructions
1. Cut the oak log directly down its center to create two half logs. Do this with a hand saw if you enjoy manual labor. It can also be done with a very powerful table saw or a chainsaw, but the best tool is a sawmill saw, which is large enough to cut an oak log easily.
2. Cut each half log in half again, to create two quarter logs. You now have four quarter logs, each one shaped like a piece of pie.
3. Cut each piece of log in straight lines separated by an inch, extending from the outside curve of the log where the bark is to the inside edges of the cuts you made down the center. This will leave you with a number of one inch thick planks of differing widths. This type of lumber is called "rift sawn" and is similar to true quarter sawn lumber.
4. Cut each piece of lumber out of the pie shaped piece of log so that a line drawn from the outside radius to the center point will go through the width of the plank. This is the way to create true quarter sawn lumber. It takes more wood to get fewer planks, but each plank will have the most stable cut possible in relation to the grain of the wood. This method also creates the distinctive flakes in the grain that make quarter sawn lumber so beautiful.
Tags: quarter sawn lumber, sawn lumber, also creates, down center, each piece