I read this somewhere today. What's your opinion?



a quarter sawn blank will be rather boring from the standpoint of figure and grain.. but will probably be more stable than a plain sawn blank... My best guess is that most blanks are plain sawn.. a quarter sawn blank would be rather uninteresting ...



Many thanks

Well, I'm not Chic, but this is only partly true and that is the part about the stability, in general, and assuming proper layout. Some of the finest blanks are quarter sawn and I've seen loads that would knock your socks off. The only reason there might be more slab sawn than quarter is simply the ability to get more blanks out of a single log. You do waste some of the log if you try to maximize the quarter sawn blanks. I personally prefer quarter sawn since it is the general standard established long, long ago.

Best to you.

hmmmmm.......well I will say this.....this blank is just about perfectly quarter sawn.



Having said that I will submit that a larger percentage of "flashy" blanks are more than likely slab sawn vs. quarter sawn. But that doesnt mean a quarter sawn blank cannot have good figure.

I think a quartersawn blank maybe more stable. For myself, this is more important than the appearance as long as it's not so ugly as to make me puke! Regards, Bill.

Hey, why are you reading at the enemy site?

http://www.huntamerica.com/wwwthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB8&Number=493965&Forum=All_Forums&Words=swamp&Match=Username&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=493406&Search=true#Post493965

Alvinmack

Come on now. Old Swamp may not be everyone's friend, but that shouldn't mean that there aren't other people over there who have interesting things to talk about. Besides, Old Idared has to get all of this information together so he can snupervise his custom stockmaker Grandview.

Gosh that is some pretty wood isn't it!!!!!

K

I left out the source off the statement on purpose as it was not my intention to poke fun at anyone or get something else started. I merely wondered what the general consensous was among the stockmakers on whether or not they thought quartersawn wood was more boring or less interesting to look at than slab sawn on a custom stock.

I myself have had enough experience with slab sawn wood that I prefer quarter sawn. I will definately sacrifice figure for proper grain structure, and yes, grandview is my number one consultant as a rule on questions I have about stock blanks. I am pretty sure I know what he would say, just curious about what others would say.

Many thanks for those who responded so far.

Blue,



Take off your Lawyer hat for just one minute and lighten up! That comment was made in good humor, so take it with a grain of salt. I think Idared brought up a great topic for Discussion. Besides, by me posting the link is a obvious admission of my own guilt for going to that site!!



-Mike

Idared,

Let me ask a question to answer a question. If a quarter sawn blank is the most stable, that is the grain surfaces are parallel to the surface of the ground, then why are laminates configured as slab sawn wood and not with the grain surfaces running as a quarter sawn blank? Wood is stable if it is stable and it does not matter if it is quarter sawn or slab sawn. Getting it wet, won't make it unstable, it will just make it wet. If a quarter sawn blank is unstable it is more likely to "walk" vertically, up or down and if it is slab sawn it is more likely to "walk" left or right. Quarter sawn wood as Bill showed can be very dramatic and beautiful. I think the old adage about a quarter sawn blank being more stable is more just an old wives tale. It may be that slab sawn blanks have more of tendency to warp as they dry and that warp left or right may make them unusable as the up or down can still be trimmed and used. I also like quarter sawn blanks and really like to see the grain flow following the grip line. If you think of a heavy kicking rifle you normally want tis kind of flow. The concept being that if the stocks breaks it will break along the surface of the growth rings or planes. That is all well and good but consider a slab sawn blank that is stable and again the heavy kicker. Now the surface are parallel to the vertical and there is not a surface that can crack and break the stock. The British realize that and build a lot of heavy kicking rifles with some fantastic slab sawn wood.



As Toby said, there are very few quarter sawn blanks available on a tree trunk and the remainder are a combination of both. It is difficult to get a lot of them without wastage. I think a cutter who strives for that is missing the boat. Swamp just did a poor job of cutting and pasting again.



Bill, you keeping that blank for me?????

My opinions on stock wood have been shaped from what I've read of the old masters, and from my own meager experience.

Wood in its natural state......unlaminated.....is never truly stable. It continues to warp and shrink. Linden wrote that warpage and shrinkage happen on opposite axes.

If you take a book....assuming the pages are the rings or grain.....draw a blank or stock on the cover and cut it out.....you have a perfect slab-sawn stock. Looking at the top or bottom of the cutout shows the grain running straight from butt to tip. The grain will run perfectly vertical on the butt. As grain or rings are circular in their natural state.......this "perfect" slab-sawn blank example would have to come from a very big tree!

Now, find a very thick book.....perhaps that dictionary you never use......or a big family bible.....and draw a blank on the surface edge of the outward pages.....between the front and back book covers. That edge or side opposite the spine. Align the blank so the page edges run parallel with the toe-line of the stock and straight up through the grip. Cut it out and you have a quarter-sawn blank. The grain or rings are perfectly horizontal when looking at the butt. This "perfect" grain also came from a very big tree!

Warpage will happen by "bending" the pages. Left or right on the slab-sawn.......up or down on the quarter-sawn.

Shrinkage will happen on the opposite axis. Vertical compression on the slab-sawn......horizontal compression on the quarter-sawn.

Linden wrote that a quarter sawn forearm can be expected to shrink and grip the barrel a bit tighter than a slab-sawn. He also liked quarter-sawn forearms that would warp up toward the barrel, if they had a tendency to move at all. He stressed that the remedy was to have the wood as dry as possible before using it. But he also knew he was dealing with a natural, imperfect media......and quarter-sawn blanks allowed him to turn small imperfections to his advantage.

Wood will have a tendencey to warp more the closer the blank comes from the bark. A large tree offers more "interior" blanks......which have less tendency to warp. As Toby mentioned, optimizing a large tree trunk for only good quarter-sawn blanks is pretty inefficient use of the wood. If you looked at the trunk end of a large tree optimized thusly......the butt ends of the blanks would radiate out from the center like spokes on a wheel. Portions from the heart (center) would be discarded, as well as portions near the bark. The "pie-sections" between the blanks would go also.

Trees aren't cut for stocks that way......likely they are cut to yield less truly "perfect" blanks, but yield more "useful" blanks in total......with much less waste.

I look for quarter-sawn blanks that come closest to the "book" description above. I like the grain to run parallel with the toe-line of the stock, straight through the grip so I don't cross grain at the edge of the tang inlet, and if possible slightly upward in the forearm.

If I found a desirable slab-sawn blank, it would also be of the above "book" example. It would have straight grain visible from top and bottom that ran true from butt to tip. The grain would also be as vertical as possible when viewed from the butt end.

Modern materials and tricks can make virtually any suitable wood into a useful hunting stock. Buying the hardest, oldest, driest, and best structured blanks you can afford is still a good adage.

GV

Now I will ask another question. I have been told by more than one seasoned Stockmaker that when stocking a side lock shotgun (L.C. Smith etc) the blank of choice is quarter sawn. This will help prevent the stock from splitting as is a chronic problem in these shotguns. Do you buy into it? If not, why?



Chic,



hehehe...keeping it? Im hiding it from you. lol



TLeeds - good to see you again on AR.

As a customer, I want old, dry, quarter-sawn wood with tight pores and perfect layout. I won't accept anything else, and if necessary I'll trade dramatic figure for mechanical integrity every time.

I've spent over a year shopping for blanks before, and I never rush the process. Look through enough blanks from enough sources, do enough sifting (and returning, and exchanging), and sure enough, the right stick will come along to suit. The 'looking' part is half the fun anyway!

AD

I have bought 3 stocks from Robert Watts at
WATTS WALNUT
I am very pleased with the no Bull Shit answers I get from Robert and his stocks are beautiful.

Two of the stocks are for the 2 404 Jeffrey Projects at John Ricks and the 3rd will restock my Model 70 Safari Express.

Like Allen said it's all in how the stock is dried and prepped! You can't be in a hurry! That's what I like about Robert's stocks, he does them right!
Just my opine!

Concerning the stability of quarter sawn vs. slab, the point must be made that the warpage potential on a true quarter sawn is up and down (U&D) whereas the slab is right and left (R&L). It is much easier to deal with an U&D warpage than R&L. The U&D warpage may even be handled by load and sight adjustments rather than tearing it apart to remove side pressure on a barrel. Relieving U&D pressure is relatively easy and yet maintain relatively tight inletting. This is not ALWAYS the case, but is generally true.

In the case of a laminate, the vertical bonds of the laminations are not the same as growth ring structure of a slab sawn blank. The wood grain structure of each lamination layer is perpendicular to the ones next to it creating stability in opposing layers, like plywood. The glue joint is quite stable and holds together much, much better than the simple growth rings of a real wood blank.

On sidelock shotguns, rifles too, stocks will tend to split along the growth rings and using a slab sawn blank on a shotgun or rifle with long tangs will tend to split the stock vertically through the ring structure. The wedging action of the tangs can have a devastating effect on slab sawn wood and much less so on quarter sawn, especially on heavy recoilers. With a quarter sawn stock you still have the same wedge effect, but the quarter sawn stock handles it quite a bit better. That is why the standard for sidelocks is generally quarter sawn wood.

There are precious few true quarter sawn blanks that will allow PERFECT layout. Even Bill's photo of a terrific blank shows a bit of layout that could split away at the bottom of the wood action interface. Additionally, inletting a sidelock plate would make it even more susceptible. The key here is perfect inletting when a blank isn't perfect, and incredibly few are. One has to deal with a non-perfect medium and the best inletting helps when considering stock strength.

Best to you.

Many thanks for all the replies. It is interesting to hear the right-left movement verses the up-down with the two different versions. I have had experience with both. One especially puzzling one was where the forend would pull away from the barrel in North Idaho and tighten against the barrel in Wisconsin. I have to lay it to humidity because I cant think of anything else that would cause it. To make a long story short the rifle ended up staying in Wisconsin. The worst part was it was built on a pre-war model 70.

Also chic, it is interesting that you bring up the laminate stock question. My Wife has a horizontal laminated stock on her 7X57 that features what are half inch laminates if I remember correctly. It used to be offered by Reinhart Fajen in their various styles. Someone else did the laminating and they just cut the stock if I remember right. I have often wondered why more people didn't try this as it actually doesn't look that bad, or not as bad as I would invision without seeing it.

One last question for this very fine panel of stockmakers, would you be more specific about slab verses quarter sawn in a stock that was going on a mannlicher styled rifle with a 20 inch barrel? I am considering such an animal in the future.

Thanks again to all who responded.

Toby,
Good response regarding the glue in laminates and the layout. There goes that argument down the drain, for those of us old enough to remember, in the words of the immortal Emily Latilla, the Saturday Nite Live News Commentator, "NEVER MIND !!!!!!" BTW, missed you in Reno this year, I would imagine that duty was calling.

I had not thought about the effect of a tapered tang but you are right, it would have to be workng like a splitting wedge. On a similar thought, why was it that the old L C Smiths seemed to have so many cracks at the rear of the sidelock? It almost seems that half or more of them suffer from this. Was it error on the part of the stockers or just old age f the stocks?

Idared,
Paul Dressel gave me a good tip once particular regarding full length stocks that would take away the impact of the wood wanting to move whether it be up, down,left or right.

I have seen this done before but always put it down to weight reduction. What it was is a longitudinal ball end mill cut in the bottom of the barrel channel. It is about 1/2" wide and extends to within 1/4" of the bottom of the stock. It starts about one inch or so ahead of the action and extends to within an inch or two of the forend iron. You can have a small interuption in the cut half way. Paul explained that it takes the strength of the forend and separates it into two long "slabs" that now because of the thin web holding them together, they tend to act independently and any effect of them wanting to wander is greatly reduced. He said he has never been able to get full length stocks to shoot very accurately without doing that.

I have not heard of the method to reduce movement in the forend of a full stock rifle before, as you relate from Dressel. It seems to make sense, however. Reducing the overall mass of the forend would reduce the amount of humidity (water) that could be soaked up and therby reduce the potential movement. It really sounds rational to me. As I recall, I was told by Don Klein that you want a bit of down relief in a full stock forend, so that when the forend tip is assembled that the forend is pulled up to the barrel slightly which affords a tight inlet and if the forend moves a bit, it does not impact accuracy a great deal. I've done but a few full stocks yet these seem to shoot quite well. Dunno for sure and I'll be thinking on this.

As for sidelock cracks on L.C. Smiths, both really. Smiths tend to have very poor inletting and generally had open grained, softish wood, in my experience anyway. The ones I've seen had atrocious inletting which allowed very little total contact at the head of the stock. As the open grained wood shrunk over the years, recoil drove the side plates further to the rear and the draft filed on the plates drove deeper into the wood portion of the sideplate faces causing the cracks commonly seen there. I believe that good inletting and better quality of wood would prevent most of these cracks. The common knowledge on how to fix this situation, other than restocking, is to glass the head, refile the draft on the plates, and relieve the area behind the plates. This commonly accepted fix makes my point. In addition, Smiths are DIFFICULT to inlet properly!! I know of a few guys that refuse to even do them!

Sorry I missed Reno, too! Have had a major job change that is requiring an enormous amount of time. Hopefully will be there next year. Certainly missed the bull sessions with Potter, Ferrell, Nelson, Goudy, quality bourbon, and etc.

Best to you.