The grain of a piece of wood

I WAS looking recently into the number of different uses of the word “grain” and it is clear that it is versatile to say the least.

The word grain is used to describe the cells that make up the bulk of the wood tissue, or fibres, within a piece of flooring for example.

People often refer to wood splitting along the grain, meaning parallel to the fibres, whilst across the grain means perpendicular, or at 90°.

When looking at a piece of flooring from the factory of Parquets Castagné it is possible to see the grain and the direction it takes.

The word grain is also used when taking into account the position of growth rings in relation to the plane of cut and the appearance produced.

For example a tangential surface, one that runs parallel to the growth rings, is said to have tangential grain, if the surface is perpendicular then it has radial grain.

How a bug changed the chainsaw

In 1946 a logger and inventor named Buford Cox conceived a radical new design for a chainsaw’s saw teeth, while sitting at a wood pile and observing a timber-beetle larva – a wood-boring insect approximately the size of a human finger.
Source: How a Wood-Boring Insect Revolutionized the Logging Industry