![\"quartersawn\"](\"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/quartersawn.jpg\")
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You’ll notice in the sales verbiage for many higher-end bass guitars that the word “quartersawn” is thrown out there quite a bit (usually in reference to the neck). Does quartersawn wood really matter in the build of a bass guitar, and if so, how?<\/p>\n
Before I answer that, I’ll tell you what quartersawn wood actually is<\/em>.<\/p>\n There are two major methods of cutting a log as far as guitar building is concerned, that being flat sawing (sometimes called plain sawing) and quarter sawing. The third and basically never-used method of sawing is rift sawing; the reason it’s never used is because a lot of waste is produced from cutting logs that way, and for guitar building it doesn’t really serve any useful practical advantage.<\/p>\n Flat is the most-used method of cutting logs into boards because it’s the easiest to do. This is where a log is passed through a blade where neither the log or the blade has its orientation changed.<\/p>\n Quarter is when the log is literally cut into quarters, and then each quarter is cut separately<\/em> in a way where the annual rings are perpendicular to the faces. In other words, a quartersawn board has grain that is much more straight.<\/p>\n Concentrating on just the neck, there are two primary reasons why you would want a quartersawn board:<\/p>\n 1. It’s pretty.<\/strong> When you want a board that really has that “wow” look to it in the grain, quartersawn is it. It’s most likely true the best-looking necks you’ve ever seen where the wood really has a luxury look to it was in fact a quartersawn board.<\/p>\n 2. It’s more stable compared to flatsawn.<\/strong> “Stable” in this instance means “stiffer”, meaning “doesn’t flex as much”.<\/p>\n And with that being said…<\/p>\n Yes.<\/strong> Looks-wise, it has a very pretty appearance. Play-wise, that’s a different story.<\/p>\n Depending on what school of thought you subscribe to, there are those who believe that a neck made from a quartersawn board does promote better string vibration, however you shouldn’t take that “as gospel” because there’s a bunch of different factors besides just the neck cut type concerning note decay rate of a string. String metal choice, bridge type\/metal choice, pickups as well as a plethora of other things all come into play (literally). In other words, if all you do is slap a quartersawn neck on a bass but don’t use any other hardware that promotes better vibration, you’re not going to notice much of a difference compared to a flatsawn neck.<\/p>\n It is true that a quartersawn neck is much better suited for stage environments because of its stiffness. If you’re a touring musician and need a neck that plays the same every time no matter where you go and no matter what the ambient temperature of the stage may be, quartersawn is very well suited for that. This is not to say that a quartersawn neck doesn’t flex, because it certainly does, but it doesn’t flex nearly as much as a flatsawn neck wood. A bass guitar with a quartersawn neck is in effect the gigging muscian’s best friend because the neck stiffness makes the instrument much more reliable.<\/p>\n Guys who are familiar with lumber yards know this old trick.<\/p>\n It is possible to buy flatsawn wood that has straight grain very similar to quartersawn. When a log is flatsawn, the boards cut from the center are basically the same as if they were quartersawn and have that nice straight (or mostly-straight) grain you’e looking for.<\/p>\n The only crappy part about this is that in most lumber yards the flatsawn straight-grain pieces are never separated from the others. The logs are cut, the boards put into a big pile, and you have to go through the pile yourself<\/em> to find those straight-grain planks. And that can take hours. Not all lumber yards are like this as some will actually separate the flatsawn straight-grain from the rest. But the fact of the matter is that most don’t.<\/p>\n Are you building a bass guitar with the intent of selling it?<\/strong> Then it’s totally worth it to go with the quartersawn neck or a straightest-grain-as-possible flatsawn neck.<\/p>\n Are you building a bass that can handle ambient temperature changes better?<\/strong> Quartersawn is great for that as well.<\/p>\n A bass guitar listed as having a quartersawn neck is not hype or sales-speak, but rather a real thing where more money was spent on the materials to actually build it, meaning yes, it genuinely is<\/em> worth more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You’ll notice in the sales verbiage for many higher-end bass guitars that the word “quartersawn” is thrown out there quite a bit (usually in reference to the neck). Does quartersawn wood really matter in the build of a bass guitar, and if so, how? Before I answer that, I’ll tell you what quartersawn wood actually … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2865"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Does quartersawn really matter?<\/h3>\n
How do you save a buck or two with build cost concerning quartersawn?<\/h3>\n