Hi Terry, This is an interesting question, especially with tone grade spruce. After a number of bad, expensive Sitka purchases I've taken a different route. As you mention, its hard to see the endgrain and/or differentiate endgrain from endgrain saw marks. Another problem is that run-out can blow away stock quite aggressively, and in my experience its hard if not impossible to read the runout in the rough stock. I'm giving up on wholesalers who are fine for lots of other stuff, but not for this particular application. So I'm taking a different route. Future purchases will be red spruce which is indigenous and plentiful in NE. Not only that, and this is the kicker for me, there are any number of small, 1 or 2 man quarter and radial sawn specialists in NE that I can talk to in person, and specify exactly what I want before they saw...and I don't need to buy 1000bf...2-3 hundred is fine. Red Spruce's strength #'s are very close to sitka's, and I'm of the opinion that the spruce used for any board RC&S or otherwise is more dependent the empirical experience of seeing how it performs in relation to the spreadsheet predictions rather than assuming that only one wood, ie sitka, will work. I actually think that sitka is the default rc&s wood, because, quite reasonably it is indigenous to Washington State where Del was developing his approach to rc&s design. Doesn't answer your reading-the- endgrain question, but I understand why you want to be careful. Jim I -- Jim Ialeggio grandpianosolutions.com 978- 425-9026 Shirley, MA
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