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[QUOTE=Darin Spayd] As I noted, Siminoff only referred to stiffness, not to the subject of stability. However, it has been pointed out that flatsawn has been done on many electrics. My assumption has been that one important factor may be that of the lighter gauge strings. Yes/no/maybe? [/QUOTE]

Doubt it, I know quite a few guys who use .13s on there strats and teles.

I certainly am not saying that you SHOULD use flat sawn lumber. For an acoustic neck, where I would worry about using flat sawn lumber is the strength of the head stock (presuming you are not cutting a scarf peg head)

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

[QUOTE=ToddStock] The Forest Products lab Wood Handbook has some info on the differences in mechanical properties for grain orientation in Chapter 4 - pretty ambiguous stuff, short of pulling the referenced papers. They give average values for most woods of interest to us here, but do not differentiate in the tables between flat, rift, and quartersawn stock.

FPS Wood Handbook

Mahogany is the default patternmakers' wood of choice because it's properties are pretty much identical in any direction, so laminations don't show join lines within days of fabrication.

Maple is another story, and def is more flexible in flat grain than quartersawn neck config. Looks to me as though any issue with lower stiffness can be addressed with either greater depth in the cross-section or additional reinforcement, as none of these necks carry anywhere close to ultimate loads.[/QUOTE]

Todd - great reference - and free!!

About maple being stiffer when quartersawn : is this conclusion based on data in the Forest Service Handbook? Or is this based on something else? In either case, could you let us know your reasoning here?

It still seems to me that bending stiffness is almost entirely determined by the longitudinal (along the grain) stiffness, and would be very close to the same regardless of how the rings are oriented. There is only a slight loss of bending stiffness due to shear effects. (See Chapter 4, page 2, the second paragraph in the section titled " Modulus of Elasticity". They claim a loss of bending stiffness due to shear effect in their testing of 10%)


And, since maple, in particular, has much higher shear stiffness in the longitudinal/radial direction, I would expect that it's loss of stiffness due to shear would make it slightly stiffer flatsawn than quartersawn.

Phil

    The fact is that wood's strength is in the grain. Flatsawn wood or quatered , the stiffness is with the grain. Agreed maple is very stiff both ways but most woods will be a tad more apt to bend under load when flatsawn.
    Quarted is most stable and has the most strength. If this wern't true airplane props wouldn't have that spec. Think how the load is applied and use the woods strength to your advatage.
john hall
blues creek guitars