How to Read Wood Grain | Paul Sellers

when I start to work on a project I read the grain of the wood that's come from the lumberyard and it has rough sawn surface or a planed surface but what I try to do when I'm reading the grain I want to explain what reading the grain is really because it's my interpretation of what's going on inside the wood and this is determined by the growth of the tree as it grows from the earth it reaches up to the sky the songs warming the leaves the growth is taking place on the outside of the tree and each year the tree grows and it puts on an extra layer on the outside so I have to interpret what's inside that wood before I start because it makes my work more efficient I'm more economic if I can understand what's going to affect the ham tool that I work the wood with then I can shorten my time working against the grain as we call it and I'll explain that as we go so sometimes we do hit grain that rises up against us and we have to knock it down somehow get it level get it smooth but then we also have to work with the chisels work with the plane work with the source to see what's going to happen to do that best we have to understand the grain so we're going to read the grain as we work along through a project so let me show you what I'm looking for when I look at a piece of wood I've got several pieces of wood back here different pieces different types of tree and each one has its own idiosyncrasy there are no two trees even within the species the grain will be different with each one but when we get to trees like you which is the one on the far right there and we move over to the left we've got very undulating grain in some oh we have all these different grains that we work with and we want these grains because they're what give it the characteristic when we're making the piece of furniture we use these pieces 2ds in these grains to decorate the piece we use them for their stability we're looking for all manner of things that will give our pieces whatever it's fir whether it's furniture a bolt a guitar and instrument of some kind we're looking at these pieces of differently for each particular application we're going to use in the piece I'm gonna go now I want to look at this simple P this is just a piece of pine I picked it up off the floor I want to look at this with you because I want you to understand what I'm looking for when I look at this piece of wood so when I see this piece of wood I want to make their box out of this this is obvious this to any woodworker is or not but what we don't always realize is that that not is the is the root of the Bronx that's coming off the tree so this is my branch here so I'm looking for this branch because this branch branches off in the direction and what it causes within this sphere this area around here you can see these onion skins here this onion shape of wood and what that is is the compression and contention of the wood so one is stretching on one side the other is compressing under the weight of the branch on the other so these things take place in all woods whether it's oak whether it's an exotic species or something like that this is happening throughout the wood so let's take a look at this area here first because on the edge of the on the face of the board here we can see this coming up here when I start to play in this if I surface playing this I can run into a problem straight away now I'm gonna plane this with a very sharp edged smoothing plane over the top of the knot and I can scarcely sell the difference when I hit the nut but if I take a heavy set plane like this one here this this surface here is smooth but as I transferred from here I was going with the grain here because the grain was rising up this way when I hit this side of the wood it's rising up this way that's when I hit the snag so watch what happens here I hit the nut and that is causing me a severe problem but what it's doing on the out out cut of the nut here I've got this torn grain here that I didn't get with the super sharp smooth this is still a sharp plane but it's heavyset and what happens is I'm now going against the grain because this grain is rising up around the branch it's supporting the blacks that's what it's supposed to do so I see this beforehand and I say to myself I have to take very shallow cuts or I have to come from this direction change direction take the very same plane and on this side of the cut it's as smooth as can be on this side but then on the opposite side what was smooth before is now torn out so I've ripped this grain out by its route I've pulled it out because the heavy set on the plane is going underneath the gray doesn't have time to cut and it rips it from the body of wood so I think that's important those are different elements this is the branch sweeping off this is the way the tree grows and we have to work within the natural properties of the wood to affect the best cut so in this case I would usually go with a super smooth shallow set on my plane like this and work down the level all the way across like this that will get both sides of it smooth but not the one on the other side is not going to be as good as the one on this side let's take a look at this one here here's another not here this is where that's their branch this is what we call a dead knock this actually is a dead not to because what's this this I can see this is popping inside it's no longer connected to the bait the main body of wood you'll come across some nuts that are actually still tied in with the main body of wood those are living nuts or live nuts this is a dead knot and the more I move this the more the fibers will allow me to release it so when I'm looking at a piece of wood I'm also looking at whether these different layers let's take a look at this here this one looks as though it's at the top these and these are all stacking up this way in actuality this is the lowest point this is from the dead center or nearer to the center of the tree how do I know that I look at these lines radiating so this is the near to the center of the tree this is the outside but because of the knot this is brought to the top so this is actually underneath this layer of growth this is underneath this layer of growth underneath this layer of growth this layer and this layer till I get to here so technically this has to be planed in this direction but when I get to this side I've got the problem this is where you start to see why we try to interpret we read the grain and that gives us the best way of looking at the wood so that we lose as little time as possible and it's about economy in this case I've got a variety of different woods here I've got different species of tree because each one has its own idiosyncrasy and even within the species they're going to be different you can see where when I was talking about the knot when I was talking about the layers of the grain how it changes well it changes because the branches are growing on the trees and that's what gives us the the texture within the tree where the grain is growing around the knot where the tree starts with a broad base and goes narrower to the top that's the outer layer Bill being laid on top of the inner layers on top of the inner layers I've got a piece of cherry here that I picked out it shows the not coming up here another not here those are the branches I was talking about I've got layers here one I can see one layer on top of another layer on top of another I have to work out whether one is underneath the piece or one is on top of the piece in this case this layer here comes to a point here and on this edge here it goes off here again another layer here it goes off here so because they come to a point it tells me which direction to plane in if I was to plane in this direction like this I would get a very smooth passage with my plane and the wood would be super smooth if go against the grain and go in this direction I know it will tear let me show you what I mean because I think this helps me the most if I go in this direction now my wood is super smooth this is silky smooth this feels as smooth as any piece of grass what happens if I go in the opposite direction my plane is sharp but if I go in this direction now it could still work but I doubt it see here it's it's jumping it's cutting over the surface and it's actually torn the grain in a very unpleasant way in here this is my fingernail cats is on it's no longer smooth I went against the grain if I can interpret that ahead of time as I did before I will have super smooth wood and I'll save myself a lot of heartache when I come to planing surfaces on the other hand there are some woods like this one this is a piece of wood I probably wouldn't even try to plain I wouldn't hand play in this I would use a scraper instead of a plane simply because by my interpretation this grain is waving in and out it's an unusual pattern for oak but it is so temperamental when I come to playing this I know this wood so I look at the surface I look at the sides I look at the way the grain goes up and down this is like quilted inside the wood it's like a quilted pattern I know I can't play in this if I can interpret that I save time I say wood and I saved myself a lot of agony when I'm working on the wood so that will give you some idea but what Woods will plane well and what woods won't play well this is a piece of quarter sawn oak how do I know that I read the grain and I can see these what we call Maduri medullary rays or Ray cells and this is where the Rays come from the epicentre of the grain so migraine in this case I can see these rings these are called growth rings sometimes called annular annual rings but because they grow annually in certain countries they may not grow annually in other countries they make if you are in the tropics for instance the tropics isn't Intel isn't controlled by winter in some of the same way we are so I take my piece of wood here just to show you what I mean this is cortisol this is oak and this is probably any quarter sawn wood is probably the most stable wood of all types of wood so here I complain this grain in any direction and get a super smooth this is so smooth I'm going to try and see what we get when I go in the opposite direction because it's quarter-sawed and I get exactly the same feeling so I've got this super smooth surface I interpreted the grain I chose the wood for that reason I'm making the frame of a door I'm making a tabletop something like that I get this wonderful grain I can plan it in other direction I'm interpreting I'm looking at the grain and I'm reading the grain I'm reading inside I'm reading the edges I'm reading the surface I can get to the core of what I want that's the very inside of the tree what's happening beneath the surface is what's showing on the top a bit like if you were watching the river and you saw a ripple on the surface of a river you would know that there was something underneath the river's surface that was causing this undulation you'd see a branch down in the water you'd see some rocks down on the bottom this is exactly the same things we're trying to look through the surface not at the surface itself because if we can do that we can better understand the nature of the wood what's going on inside each individual piece that we pick up and we make very economical movements when we're working with our hand tools

Channel: Paul Sellers

Views: 132,852

Rating: 4.9505262 out of 5

Keywords: woodworking, hand tools, paul sellers, how to, reading wood grain, wood grain, grain, wood, handtools, plane, planing, difficult grain, joinery, timber, pine, oak, funiture, wood prep

Id: NZqYh-6c0m8

Length: 13min 27sec (807 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 02 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/IttyBittyKittyFarts]

Sellers is amazing at teaching the fundamentals. He has me following along so well that I can see where he's going before he gets there, while he's also giving answers to questions I wouldn't have thought to ask yet. This is exactly the kind of in-depth information I'm looking for if I'm ever going to master woodworking. I just love this guy.