tone bar/grain direction

[rwh4]

In Siminoffs book about deflexion tuning there is a test
he did for a Mando neck.He stated that a slab cut neck
would be stiffer than a vertical grain .Relating this to
to the tone bars,which grain direction is best.Tradition
is for vertical grain.If slab cut is stiffer would that be better,or do you want the tone bar to flex with the top.I guess a vertical grain tone bar would match the vertical grain of the top and that makes sense.Has anyone tried slab cut tone bars?

[sunburst]

I'd have to see the science to convince me that a slab cut neck shaft would be stiffer. It would be less stable in most cases.
Tone bars need to be split with verticle grain. Spruce is observably stiffer and more stable quartered. Wood in general is more likely to be stiffer when quartered.

[Jim Hilburn]

It's possible there is some confusion here. If Roger is saying to cut the neck profile from slab wood, then you actually get a quartered neck.

[Michael Lewis]

Ervin Somogyi wrote a comprehensive article for American Lutherie concerning just this subject. His conclusion, after testing many pieces of wood , is that the grain direction makes only a small difference. More important are the qualities of stiffness of the piece of wood in question, as some pieces exhibit different traits from other pieces. Some will be stiffer quartered, but some will be stiffer flatsawn, and yet others will exhibit more stiffness with the grain running off quarter about 45 degrees. It's not as simple as one direction is stiffer than the other direction because there are so many variables. Proportional stiffness along the grain to across the grain varies considerably and can be another factor to consider. The point is that you will have to test each piece of brace wood to know which way is the best.

[Michael Lewis]

Oh yeah, almost forgot, violin family instrument necks are flatsawn. They've been doing it that way for more than 300 years and it's still working. Hey, I don't make the wood, I just try to use it to best advantage, and like has been said so many times,"each piece is different". http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/coffee.gif http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif