What is figured wood? An explanation

October 23, 2023

Hello Everyone. Ive posted once before, my name is Ben Greenberg. I run Greenberg Woods and specialize in rare and highly figured woods. I wanted to explain a little bit about what wood figure is, and how to understand it. The is the first part of a much longer article ive written that is hosted on my website, HERE

What is figured wood? What causes curly grain in wood? How come a piece of curly wood may seem to have less figure after its used, and which faces of a figured piece of wood will show the best figure?

These are common questions about figured wood. In the end all wood figure is a product of grain direction and the anisotropic nature of wood. Anisotropic means that the properties of wood are different depending on the direction of the material. That is because wood is a composite material. All wood is made of 2 compounds, cellulose and lignin. Think of wood as lots of thin straws all glued together, running in the same direction. The straws are cellulose, and the glue is lignin. If you glued together a cube of straws, all lined up you would have 2 kinds of faces. The 4 sides of the cube would be more or less the same, showing the long edges of many straws next to each other. This is called Long grain. The top and bottom surfaces would be different though, they would show only the ends of the straws. This is called end grain. The properties of these 2 different faces would be different as well. You could also cut the cube at an angle, thus creating a surface that is part end grain, and part long grain. The percentage of each would be a result of the angle of intersection relative to the angle of the straws. You could discribe a 45 degree cut as being half long grain, and half end grain character. A 30 degree cut would be 66% long grain and 33% end grain and so on. This is a simple primer of the anisotropic nature of wood.

This shows the difference between end and long Grain.

However, wood has another factor, the grain angle. Grain angle is a product of the fact that trees grow in rings. Depending on the angle the rings make with the surface, wood can be described as either Flatsawn, quartersawn or riftsawn.

When the angle between the rings and the surface is low, that is to say the rings are nearly parallel to the surface the grain is described as being flatsawn, sometimes called plainsawn.

When the angle between the rings and the surface approaches 90 degrees, that is to say the rings are perpendicular to the surface the grain is described as being quartersawn.

The 3rd designation is right sawn, where the angle is close to 45 degrees. This is of most importance with woods like oak, but it should be mentioned. The diagram below shows what the end of a board with the different types of grain would look like.