Wood Art - Grain

Grain

A person who begins woodcarving is challenged to learn to work with the fiber and grain. Hardness and fragility vary with the species of wood. In general, wood tends to break in the "split direction", the direction in which the fibers separate. In the composition of work, one must work with and around this. Each direction of cut feels and works differently. Sharp tools are essential in allowing the artist's sense to shape the material.

Planks of wood are said to be quarter-sawn when the growth rings are more or less at right angles to the thickness. If the growth rings are more parallel to the width, then the plank is said to be slab-cut. While slab-cut planks are seasoning, they tend to cup in a direction so as to "straighten" the growth rings.

Seasoned wood never completely stabilizes, but continues to swell and shrink with seasonal humidity and temperature variations. Any design concept using wood must allow for the particulars of this dimensional variation. Warped wood may be described as bent, twisted, or cupped, or some combination of those modes.

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Famous quotes containing the word grain:

    “The laying of fish on the embers,
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    —Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)

    “Have We not made the earth as a cradle
    and the mountains as pegs?
    And We created you in pairs,
    and We appointed your sleep for a rest;
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    —Qur’an, “The Tiding” 78:6-16, ed. Arthur J. Arberry (1955)

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    —Czeslaw Milosz (b. 1911)