Are most mandolin backs quartersawn?

[Charlie Ayers]

Hi folks:

I'm having an F5 style instrument built, and the question has arisen as to which to use - "plainsawn" or quartersawn maple, for the back. Are there differences in stability or tone?

Thanks!
Charlie

[Jim Hilburn]

Quartersawn is the most stable. It is also the most stiff. Flatsawn is often used in one piece backs. If you use flatsawn wood for a bookmatched back ,you get some very strange looking grain pattern from one side to the other. Rift-sawn ,or slightly off quarter can give the best looking backs because the figure looks more random than the fiddleback look of quartersawn, but if it's possible to have the tight fiddleback look on on half and the more flame look on the other because one side of the arch is going into the quarter while the other is going away from it.
If you have a quarterawn back carved with the recurve, when you flex it from the side to the center, you will see it is more flexible than from the back to the center, especially with tighter grained wood. A flatsawn back will probably be more flexible in that area.

[Cragger]

what is difference in tone?

[Charlie Ayers]

Thanks for the info, Jim.

Charlie

[Kevin Briggs]

I'll happily re-ignite this one.

Are there differences in tone between flat-sawn and quarter-sawn?

[David Newton]

Yes, it's better!

[Kevin Briggs]

What's better?

[sunburst]

Quartered maple is quite a bit more dimensionally stable than flat sawn, but I don't think it can be demonstrated that maple is stiffer cut one way or the other, or that a mandolin sounds any different owing to the grain orientation of the back.

Jim, have you done any deflection testing or otherwise measured stiffness, or are you going on how stiff your backs feel?

[David Newton]

Sorry to be smarta##. The problem is, how are you going to be able to quantify the difference between flatsawn tone and quartersawn tone? There will probably be a difference in tone, if you built a mandolin and made two backs, one of quartersawn wood, and one of flatsawn wood, and after building, exchange the backs and try to hear the difference. Will any difference you hear be the same with any other quartersawn/flatsawn back? How could you ever know? Since you can build with either, taking into account different species react differently according to how they are cut, most builders will build with what they get, looking at beauty of the figure, stiffness, etc.

[whistler]

Does stiffness not vary from one piece of wood to another, regardless of grain orientation? And could you not achieve the desired tone by adjusting your thickness graduation to the physical properties of each individual piece?

[whistler]

..and, like Dave in Tejas says, how would you know how much, if any, of the tone of the finished instrument is due to the grain orientation, anyway? http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif

[David Newton]

These discussions of "what is the difference?" are going to be never-ending, not that they aren't interesting, in some cases. My wife nailed it some time ago, when I came in with my latest guitar, which at the time was my greatest effort, and she pronounced "It sounds like one of your guitars." Each maker tends to build a certain sound, varying some with materials, but similar tone to his others, within a range.
I had nightmares thinking that if I was unhappy with my "signature tone" I could not improve it. We MUST be masters of our materials, that is the art of what we do.

[sunburst]

Does stiffness not vary from one piece of wood to another, regardless of grain orientation?

Yes, it does.

And could you not achieve the desired tone by adjusting your thickness graduation to the physical properties of each individual piece?

Yes, you can.
At least mostly.
You can for overall stiffness within some "normal" range of stiffness, but maybe not as easilly for stiffness lengthwise the grain vs. stiffness across the grain. I'm thinking that's what Jim Hilburn was talking about in his earlier post, hopefully he'll come back and elaborate.

I've actually read of tests that showed that flatsawn maple may be slightly stiffer than quartersawn lengthwise the grain. If it is less stiff across the grain, then the ratio of lengthwise to crosswise stiffness could be different in the average piece of maple depending on the grain orientation. That would not mean that every piece of flatsawn maple would have a stiffness ratio different from that of every piece of quartersawn maple.

It really all (almost) comes down to how you carve the wood.