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"FIGURE" AND "GRAIN"

A note about the use of the terms "figure" and "grain", how I use them and how Dr. Hoadley uses them, and the justification for my own point of view over his.

NOTE this is excepted from my ILLUSTRATED GLOSSARY OF WOOD AND WOODWORKING TERMS

A note about "grain" and "figure". These terms are used in sometimes interchangeably in a way that I believe to be incorrect. In this glossary, I take a point of view which I believe is the "correct" one, but I want to acknowledge that it is opposed to that taken by some, including a man whom I consider very much my better in regards to knowledge of wood and that is Dr. Bruce Hoadley who has written two books that are widely, and I believe appropriately, considered to be the definitive works in their field. These are "Identifying Wood" and "Understanding Wood". On this particular issue, I have a strong and supportable reason for differing with Dr. Hoadley. What is presented below is first a discussion of how I see the two terms and why, and following that an extensive list of the causes for figure and the types of figure. Had this difference of opinion been with anyone other than Dr. Hoadley, I would simply have ignored them and gone on my way and would not have subjected my readers to this diatribe. However, I think that regarding ANY other information about wood, anyone who ignores Dr. Hoadley is being foolish. As young people say these days, when it comes to knowledge about wood, "He da man".

First, my purpose in providing this glossary is NOT to validate (or invalidate) any academic points of view. I don't really care about academic points of view. My entire and only goal is to provide information that is useful to wood craftspeople in the USA. From THAT point of view, my interpretation of the "correct" use of grain and figure IS in fact the correct one because it is the overwhelming consensus point of view of the English speaking world. More on that below.

Second, what IS my point of view and that of Dr. Hoadley? Here's the deal: the term grain is used in two ways in relation to wood. The first way implies having to do with the growth rings of a tree and the pores along those growth rings. In this form of usage, and this is about 80% of the ways that he shows the word grain used, I am in total agreement with Dr. Hoadley (and in fact, as far as I am aware, so is EVERYONE). The second form of useage implies having to do with wood appearance in ways that are only secondarily related to, or almost UNrelated to, the rings and pores. Such usage should, I believe, substitute the word "figure" for the word "grain". A blatant example of this is "bird's eye". To me, this is a wood figure, not a wood grain. To me, the phrase "bird's eye grain" is screechingly awful and makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, whereas term "bird's eye figure" rolls off the tongue smoothly.

Dr. Hoadley, in "Understanding Wood", presents a table of usage of the term grain and in that table he has a subset of "figure type" which includes "bird's eye grain", "roey grain", and so forth. For items such as roey and fiddleback and others that he presents as "grain" types, I take the point of view that these are descriptions of wood figure that are a RESULT of some form of grain but are not themselves grain terms. That is, I say that roey and fiddleback are not types of grain, they are types of figure, whereas Dr. Hoadley's table puts them as types of grain. To me, figure is a broad term that encompasses all of the characteristics that go into the formation of a wood's appearance and grain is just one of those characteristics and it is limited to things directly and specifically related to tree rings and pores. That is the way I use the terms in this glossary. I belive a fair analogy would be to say that the rubber from car tires should be described as either "tire rubber" or "car rubber". There is an undeniable connection between the tire and the car, but the phrase "car rubber" just sounds silly in the same way that I think "bird's eye grain" sounds silly.

Fortunately for my sanity (and the hair on the back of my neck), my point of view is very widely shared, to the point where I can safely say that it is the current consensus among English-speaking woodworkers. How do I know this? Well, there is a facility available today to sample opinion in a way that was not available to Dr. Hoadly back when he was compiling his information on wood. It's the internet. I googled the compound phrases "bird's eye grain" (with the quotes) and "bird's eye figure", and a couple of similar phrases.

In every case, the number of hits with the word figure was over 70% of the total hits for both forms and in one case it was over 90%. This is an obvious concensus towards the use of figure and grain in the way that I present them in this glossary. Here are the stats:

"bird's eye grain": 794 hits
"birdseye grain": 519 hits
grain total: 1313 (25% of the total "grain vs figure" hits)

"bird's eye figure": 800 hits
"birdseye figure": 2990 hits
figure total: 3970 (75% of the total "grain vs figure" hits)

fiddleback grain: 492 (29%)
fiddleback figure: 1220 (71%)

roey grain: 425 (8%)
roey figure: 4830 (92%)

So, am I saying that common usage trumps academic expertise? In this case, yes I am. Over time, common usage BECOMES the "correct" definition of terms. Word usage in all languages, and I would argue that this is especially true in English, is a process of evolution.

ENOUGH ....

---

figure --- the "look" of a piece of wood. There are numerous wood characteristics that go into creating the figure, and there are numerous specific types of figure that are created due to one or more of those characteristics. Listed below are the major causal characteristics of figure and then the major types of figure, but with only a brief definition of each. Each is a URL that you can click on to go to a more full definition. Some of the causal characteristics and the figure types have the same names, so some terms appear in both lists below. I'm being very broad here in my definition of "figure" as the "look" of wood. For example, metal stain is not normally considered "figure" but it is something that affects the "look" of wood so I've included it here (doesn't seem like too much of a stretch since other stains ARE considered part of figure).

      CAUSES OF FIGURE

• burl --- an abnormal "cancerous" growth on a tree or its root
• cluster burl --- isolated area of burl in a section of otherwise non-burl wood
• color variations --- various stripes of color
• cut type --- the way the log is cut: includes:
• back cut --- synonymous with flat cut
• bastard cut --- synonymous with rift cut
• crown cut --- cut is at a shallow angle to the axis of the log
• flat cut --- the cut is tangential to a tree ring
• plain sawn --- synonymous with flat cut
• quartercut --- a cutting technique that produces a small number of quartersawn boards but many more boards that are rift cut
• quartersawn --- the pith of the log is in the plane of the cut
• rift cut --- half way between flat cut and quartersawn (mostly used on oaks)
• rotary cut --- veneer only; a rotating cut around the circumference of a log
• through and through --- produces flat cut, rift cut, and quartersawn planks
• vertical grain --- same as quartersawn
• defects
• wormhole --- wormhole and any accompanying discoloration
• stains --- various forms of stain, including:
• blue stain --- fungus in sapwood
• brown stain --- two types, one fungal, one due to kiln drying
• chemical stain --- due to concentration and modification of extractives
• gray stain --- an oxidization process
• mineral stain --- minerals from the soil
• metal stain --- due to moisture plus contact with ferrous metal
• sticker stain --- due to moisture
• sticker stripe --- due to UV light
• water stain --- due to water
• white rot --- a fungal infection that turns wood white (and usually punky)
• graft line --- occurs in grafted trees
• grain type --- various types of grain, including:
• indented grain --- indentations in the growth rings (causes bear claw figure)
• interlocked --- grain changes directions over growing seasons
• irregular grain grain varies significantly from the normal straight grain
• straight --- simple straight grain up and down the tree
• wavy --- grain that gently varies with a wavy pattern
• wild grain --- same as irregular grain
• MORE ???
• heart/sap
• knots --- small cylinders of branch heartwood going into a log
• rings --- the annual growth rings with earlywood / latewood
• root burl --- a burl that has grown on the root of a tree
• spalted --- a particular kind of fungal infection in dead wood
• tissue structure; tissue structure characteristics, including:
• pores --- the size, spacing, and open/closed nature of the wood pores
• rays --- strips of cells that radiate horizontally inside the trunk of a tree
• tyloses --- a shiny substance that clogs the pores in woods such as white oak and black locust

      TYPES OF FIGURE

• ambrosia --- heavy streaking induced by the ambrosia beetle's boring.
• angel step --- staircase figure that occurs in some cuts of tree stumps
• basket weave --- a type of block mottle that looks like a basket
• bear claw --- short streaks on flat cut surfaces, generally due to indented grain
• bear scratch --- same as bear claw
• bee's wing --- looks like tight razor mottle that has been broken up (literally, looks like a bee's wing)
• bird's eye --- lots of little "eye" spots
• blister --- A small raised surface area, similar in appearance to the blisters that occur on human skin
• burl --- usually wild and swirly and/or with lots of eyes and localized clumping of cell groups
• cathedral grain --- a type of flat cut where the grain forms a "U" or "V" pattern
• cat's paw --- a type of cluster burl
• clear --- having no knots or flaws
• cluster burl --- an isolated grouping of burl figure
• crossfire --- any of the figures that go across the grain (includes curly, fiddleback, mottled)
• crotch --- the area where two trunks or a trunk and branch join
• curly --- looks like a wheat field in the wind
• feather crotch --- a particular form of crotch figure
• fiddleback --- an intense cross-grain curl
• flaky --- shows heavy ray flakes
• flame --- has three different usages:
• flame crotch --- a particular form of crotch figure also called "feather crotch"
• flame in box elder --- box elder with red streaks
• flame --- synonymous with "curly" or "fiddleback" on some woods
• graft line --- occurs in grafted trees
• irregular grain a somewhat vague term, used when the grain varies significantly from normal straight grain
• knotty --- contains multiple knots
• masur --- a particular, odd, grain type that occurs in birch
• mottle --- various forms of mottle, including:
• block mottle --- mottled with a fairly regular arrangement
• broken mottle --- same as mottled but a term that seems to be avoided due to a perceived negative connotation (hey, who wants to buy something that's broken?)
• mottled --- full of unorganized parallelogram-shaped sections
• razor mottle --- fairly long, regular, very sharp mottles
• peanut shell --- looks like peanut shells (the regular kind with two nuts in one shell)
• pecky --- looks like the wood has been pecked by a bird, or may look like worm tracks
• pippy --- looks like the wood has the measles
• pomelle --- like a puddle being hit by raindrops
• quilted --- looks like lots of air bubbles in water under glass
• roey --- same as striped (roey literally means "having rows") but not ribbon striped
• ribbon stripe --- looks like parallel ribbons running lengthwise (with the grain)
• rotary --- swirly figure caused by rotary cutting
• sausage quilt --- quilted with somewhat elongated, parallel, "quilts" that look like tube sausage
• spalted --- figure caused by spalting
• special --- a term applied to a particular form of figure in etimoe
• striped --- has stripes (if they are regular, it's usually called ribbon stripe and if they are short and/or of uneven length it's called roey)
• swirl --- swirly figure caused by near-crotch, rotary cutting, etc.
• tiger --- synonymous with curly and sometimes used as synonymous with fiddleback
• wild --- vague term for extreme figure
• wormy --- figure dominated by worm etchings or worm holes