Quarter Sawn vs Rift Sawn

It seems kind of impractical to make cuts like either of the cuts called rift or quarter sawn in those diagrams. You will see various diagrams about what rift and quarter sawn are and some show different definitions of the various cuts. Both of the quarter and rift sawn cuts you show above I would have called radial cut. I would think that either of those would be tough to do without special work holding and you will waste a lot of wood if you can even pull off what they call the rift cut. Also, the (radial) rift sawn cut above may actually reduce the ray fleck appearance when cutting oak.
I do my quarter sawn cuts like this. Much easier and probably how old time saw mills did it:



I learned that the reddish boards are the quarter sawn pieces and the rest were rift sawn. This image from Wikipedia is how I learned it in my logging and milling class in college:

If you look at the 2 diagrams (your top QS vs mine), I bet that the ratio of wide to narrow boards is about the same. You only get 1 or 2 full radius cuts and they get progressively smaller as you go in either method and the narrower boards will still have the same rift grain (wiki diagram) as the traditional method. The traditional quarter sawn cut I showed requires no special work holding and results in parallel cuts without having to adjust the position of the log on a sled or jig-just rotate 90°, push the face you just cut against the fence and cut. Also, the smaller boards that are rift sawn grain are still very stable because the growth rings run across the narrow dimension of the board (as opposed to across it in plain sawn). One other thing that just occurred me me is that with the radial cut method, you have 2 edges to cut off to get square edges. In the traditional method you just have to cut the barks side off. One other thing that I do is stop cutting when I have a piece that will yield a 1.5-2" square piece, depending upon how large the log is.

This what I've come to understand a quarter sawn.

This is what I typically use to cut what I need.

You can cut plain saw slabs with a milling sled for the bandsaw. I slapped a quick and dirty one together several years ago and I often use it to cut into quarters to make sure that I get nice flat surfaces on the quarters.

I was curious what the theoretical yield would be on a 12" log using the 2 approaches so drew up 1" thick boards using the 2 methods. It looks like a trade off between wider boards vs. a slightly better quarter sawn grain with more waste and a more difficult cutting technique:


Obviously doesn't take kerf into account

BTW, the diagonal grain in the square that I like to do instead of narrow rift grain pieces results in vertical grain on the length of the board. If you make it large enough, vertical grain is good for table legs for example because it will have a similar grain appearance on all 4 sides, though in this case, you will probably also have sap wood too.

It didn't take too long and I did it more to answer my curiosity than anything else. I spent another 5 minutes changing the board thickness to 2". The traditional QS method will yield 1 extra pieces than the radial one. The radial cut method would really only yield one. This is based upon 12" log but should be a pretty good indication, if you are a little over or under.


I highly recommend some sort of bandsaw milling sled. It helps make sure that your cuts to quarter it are all mostly flat. These surfaces ride on the table and along the fence so you want them as flat as possible so that the resulting boards are as flat as possible to start. The one I use is similar to this one using a long clamp to hold the log during the cut, though mine is was definitely less refined and shorter. I can only manhandle about a 3' log by myself while cutting and supporting the log through the cut.