Thread: quarter-sawn timbers for framing

Hey Scott Welcome to the forum

for posts it is a bit hard to have them QS or BS as they don't have a 'face' and an 'edge'...

Backsawn (BS)



growth rings have to be less than 45deg to the face of the timber. True BS has to have growth rings less than 10 deg.

Quartersawn (QS)



growth rings have to be greater than 45 deg to the face. true QS has growth rings greater than 80 deg to the face.

so with having four faces on a post, depending upon which way you look at it it is BS and then if you turn it 90deg it is QS.

What gear are you using?

From personal experience using a Lucas, it is very hard to cut a good straight 4x4" from a log any smaller than 2' dia. So to get good 6x6" the log needs to be around 3' dia - do you have logs that size?

I'd be inclined to box the heart of a younger smaller tree around 10"-12" dia others here will disagree as 6" boxed heart posts are a bit too small and will feel they are prone to splitting out as they have a lot of heart. Again from personal experience I've cut all the posts for my house using boxed heart 5x5's and yep some split, but a small minority and way before they where ready to use - all came from 10"-12" dia Ironbark

Originally Posted by Sigidi

Hey Scott Welcome to the forum

for posts it is a bit hard to have them QS or BS as they don't have a 'face' and an 'edge'...

Backsawn (BS)



growth rings have to be less than 45deg to the face of the timber. True BS has to have growth rings less than 10 deg.

Quartersawn (QS)



growth rings have to be greater than 45 deg to the face. true QS has growth rings greater than 80 deg to the face.

so with having four faces on a post, depending upon which way you look at it it is BS and then if you turn it 90deg it is QS.

What gear are you using?

From personal experience using a Lucas, it is very hard to cut a good straight 4x4" from a log any smaller than 2' dia. So to get good 6x6" the log needs to be around 3' dia - do you have logs that size?

I'd be inclined to box the heart of a younger smaller tree around 10"-12" dia others here will disagree as 6" boxed heart posts are a bit too small and will feel they are prone to splitting out as they have a lot of heart. Again from personal experience I've cut all the posts for my house using boxed heart 5x5's and yep some split, but a small minority and way before they where ready to use - all came from 10"-12" dia Ironbark

Number 1 not many aussies would know what red oak is!!!

number 2 if you are cutting 6 by 6 inch poles it will be both backsawn and quarter sawn but truly neither. will be quarter sawn one way turn it 90 degrees it will be backsawn.

You would be able to do it the way you have proposed but will probably have a bit of sapwood on a couple of corners of your posts. I agree with what alan has said but with oak you should find the heart more tolerant than ironbark, after all the poms built a lot of stuff with green hewn oak and it has stood for hundreds of years. Yes they used it green, cut it down one day, built their house the next and in a lot of instances did not even drive a nail.

And for decking you want as close to truly backsawn as possible and nail it with the curve of the grain facing down.

I will dig up some info on what you want to do tomorrow, should find it quite helpful.

I couldn't wait that long so check out the attached bit on building decks. There is a lot more info available online too so do some googling.

Thanks for the replies, Sigidi and Travis. I'll be using a bandsaw with a rolling carriage, Woodmizer is the common brand here, so the cuts should be pretty true. Nope, no 30" logs, it takes 100 years to grow a 24" red oak log, unless it's all by itself next to water the whole time! Mine is all woods-grown, so it grew slowly and the grain is pretty tight. And I'm not so concerned about the grain for appearances, mostly concerned about warping over time. I may rout the corners anyway, so if there was an inch of heartwood, I could take some off. As far as strength loss from heartwood being left in the middle of the post if I cut them from single logs, I guess I could cut them a little big, and red oak is pretty stout.

Curious, do you have something down under that is similar to red oak? The stuff is all over Maine. If the porch comes out okay, I'll cut a bunch of white pine, our other common species, and building a timber frame camp up north.

Also, really useful point about backsawing the decking, thanks for that.

Cheers

Originally Posted by thinman56

Thanks for the replies, Sigidi and Travis. I'll be using a bandsaw with a rolling carriage, Woodmizer is the common brand here, so the cuts should be pretty true. Nope, no 30" logs, it takes 100 years to grow a 24" red oak log, unless it's all by itself next to water the whole time! Mine is all woods-grown, so it grew slowly and the grain is pretty tight. And I'm not so concerned about the grain for appearances, mostly concerned about warping over time. I may rout the corners anyway, so if there was an inch of heartwood, I could take some off. As far as strength loss from heartwood being left in the middle of the post if I cut them from single logs, I guess I could cut them a little big, and red oak is pretty stout.

Curious, do you have something down under that is similar to red oak? The stuff is all over Maine. If the porch comes out okay, I'll cut a bunch of white pine, our other common species, and building a timber frame camp up north.

Also, really useful point about backsawing the decking, thanks for that.

Cheers

The way to go would be to post some pics of the tree and the timber so that some of the other guys can compare what we have here. Probably the closest we have to red oak timber wise is casuarina of which there are quite a few different ones, but truly they are nothing alike really. We do have some big european oaks which were brought out here by white settlers trying to recreate a "bit of home". There are also some redwoods and other stuff around but not in any quantity at all.

Travis

Thinman, I'm familiar with woodmizers should be able to do the job quite well for boxing 6x6 posts from smaller logs. As I said I did 5x5's here at home and the smallest I could get one from was 230mm or 9" dia.

From what my US fella's say on another forum, oak is quite dense, close grained (as you mentioned) so it could be similar to our spotted gum???

I'm interested to hear the general consensus re backsawing or quarter sawing for flooring. I tend to differ from Travis's advice when sawing flooring in that I usually quarter saw. This gives a board with the growth rings on their edge for hardness under traffic, a stable board that is less prone to distortion (less cupping), in my opinion anyway. Granted I have no experience with american species, mostly cutting spotted gum, grey ironbark, blue gum.
Peoples thoughts?

Originally Posted by footrot

I tend to differ from Travis's advice

Uh oh...

Footrot, with QS timber take a look at the pic above and imagine a decking nail holding down QS timber Vs BS timber...
one of the main reasons for using backsawn timber it so it doesn't split when fastened down to the joist. The movement in the timber is accounted for in the gap left between the boards when installing it.

Some species, when quarter sawn, will split when nailed close to the end. Flooring will be dried and decking should at least be partially seasoned. If we are talking flooring here it will be seasoned and end matched. Pre drilling will only be necessary if the join is close to the joist.
Quarter sawn is more stable as radial shrinkage is half tangential shrinkage. Quarter sawn boards end up in the mix all the time and are not a problem. Check out any timber floor and you will see both quarter and backsawn boards. There is no drama.

cheers
Steve

Originally Posted by Exador

Uh oh...

cmon craig live and let live.

As for the debate about whether qs is better or not I am not really going to wade in on that one except to state that it is the "norm" when using things like treated pine to mill it backsawn and mould/ machine it so that the curve of the grain is frowning. I agree that some timbers are more beautiful and durable quarter sawn but sigidi makes a good point about splitting.

Any how this is not really what the thread was about in the start so we are getting a bit off track.