Do you have an analogy that would help explain wood grain?

[Stanleythecat]

I have been doing a little spoon carving with a mental health project recently and have been racking my brains to find a good analogy to explain 'grain', carving with and against etc. Do you have a good analogy that you like to use when conveying this? It has to be fairly simple for people who has little or no experience of working wood.

I tried using a yellow pages, the pages being the grain; carving into it would be hard but shaping the edges of the pages easier... not sure if that works! How do you look at it?

Thanks

Leo

 

[Baggy]

A bundle of straws....

 

[Skaukraft]

Fibre direction.

 

[dwardo]

Spaghetti and spokes of a wheel.

 

[Stanleythecat]

Thanks Guys. I tried the straws analogy too but it seems people still get puzzled. Try to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has never done woodwork before; fibres and grain are an alien concept. Why won't a knife cut against the grain? I can tell them why but it doesn't relate to them in an way!

Leo

 

[Stanleythecat]

Spaghetti and spokes of a wheel.

Interesting Dwardo... spokes of a wheel?

Leo

 

[abominable_scouse_monster]

Tru using human head hair as a example, fibres all naturaly alligned in one direction it's good when it goes agenst the grain you get bed head.

 

[Lister]

driving - easier to drive with round wheels than square ones.....sounds daft but it works, easier to go with the grain than against it, round wheels give a smooth drive (smooth carve going with the grain), square wheels would give a bumpy, jerky drive (more effort needed to carve against the grain), if the wheel shape idea doesn't seem your thing, stick with driving and go for tarmac roads v concrete roads, tarmac roads being smooth and easy to drive over, concrete roads being bumpy and harder to drive over (from where the cement was tampered/levelled and gained the uneven texture).

You could try surfing? hard to swim against the current but once you're on a wave, it takes no effort, with carving it'd take effort to go against the grain but go with it and it's easy

 

[Lister]

You could try surfing? hard to swim against the current but once you're on a wave, it takes no effort, with carving it'd take effort to go against the grain but go with it and it's easy

 

[Baggy]

http://www.accessscience.com/loadBinary.aspx?filename=757407FG0030.gif

 

[dwardo]

Interesting Dwardo... spokes of a wheel?

Leo

Spokes of a wheel to explain the med rays seems to help a lot. Spaghetti bundled into stack then twisted slightly to show twisted grain over a length of wood.
The shaving an old yellow pages with a sharp knife can also help to explain why you can cut ok at certain angles and not at others. Lets face it who still uses a yellow pages!
Grain is very important in bow making and this is how i have explained it to people when teaching them to make bows.

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

Confusing - not all softwoods are soft, not all hardwoods are hard (balsa is soft), not all fir trees retain needles (larch loses them).

Some woods will plane both ways along the grain, others won't. Some end grain is planeable most is not.

So.........

Just demo one grain that does not cut well and one that does !

PS I teach Techy or CDT by day.

 

[Nomad]

Tempted to agree with doing a demonstration. Analogies are all fine and well, but sometimes ostensive definition is the most straightforward. It is, after all, how we all start learning anything. Take a bit of softwood and try cutting across the grain with a knife, showing that it takes lots of effort, then put it end on and split it with ease.

As long as the audience have an idea of what it means to put different amounts of effort into things to get a similar result (and that could be as simple as putting a dinner knife through mashed potato compared to through a sausage, or biting a bit of banana compared to apple, etc), they should pick up what you mean. The (potentially) new concept is that the one object/material has mash/banana strength in one direction, and sausage/apple strength in the other.

Then you can go on to explain grain and fibres - maybe by pulling apart a bit of natural rope to show its structure, and explain how the knife can pass down between the fibres easier than it can cut through a bunch of them at an angle. Then explain that the wood is like the rope, only much firmer.

 

[Bardster]

Hold your hand with the little finger on top, as above. your fingers are the grain. if a blade aproaches from the right it will naturally want to slide between the fingers as the easiest path. because there is no support above the fingers they lift up easily, ie the wood splits. this is cutting uphill.

If the blade aproaches from the left cutting down across the slope of the fingers, each finger is supported by the one below it and therefore does not move, the knife will cut across the face of the grain, not splitting the wood and leaving a clean finish. This is cutting downhill.

This is the method i use to explain it when i teach spoon carving. You could of course replace the fingers with straws, to save confusing/encouraging people to cut their fingers.....

 

[ganstey]

To explain rough (against) and smooth (with) grain how about cat fur - it's much easier to stroke a cat with the grain rather than against it.
Graham

 

[dwardo]

Confusing - not all softwoods are soft, not all hardwoods are hard (balsa is soft), not all fir trees retain needles (larch loses them).

Some woods will plane both ways along the grain, others won't. Some end grain is planeable most is not.

So.........

Just demo one grain that does not cut well and one that does !

PS I teach Techy or CDT by day.

CDT Did not realise they still called it that good to hear its not been dumbed down or amalgamated
Both of my CDT teachers were brilliant at what they did and both were Amazing characters.

I guess half the problem is common terms like softwood, hardwood, pine, fir, spruce etc. "Fir" I read somewhere was an old word meaning "fair" as in average for instance.
I find all woods completely different to cure, work and finish. Lots of differences still within one specific species depending on where it was grown.
Its like anything else I guess the more you want to know the more there is too learn which makes it great.

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

CDT Did not realise they still called it that good to hear its not been dumbed down or amalgamated
Both of my CDT teachers were brilliant at what they did and both were Amazing characters.

I guess half the problem is common terms like softwood, hardwood, pine, fir, spruce etc. "Fir" I read somewhere was an old word meaning "fair" as in average for instance.
I find all woods completely different to cure, work and finish. Lots of differences still within one specific species depending on where it was grown.
Its like anything else I guess the more you want to know the more there is too learn which makes it great.

Kids are still shocked that some planks, like cedar, weigh almost nothing. And aluminium is so light. When I started teaching, kids believed everything I said eg 'these are growth rings showing how old a tree is' 'this is pure latex rubber used to clean the sander, it comes from tree sap, the rubber tree' 'this wood was gorwn in Brazil' - but now they don't always believe me, maybe the hyped web generation.......

CDT is called Techy in Scotland. See my work link for some school stuff. We do everything from chisel joints with/without mallets and Mortise chisels, mortise machines, biscuit jointers, MIG and MMARC welding, spot welding, forging, brazing, scrollwork, metal turning - knurling, thread cutting, vaccuum forming, then we do 3D Modelling on the PCs, Graphic design etc etc. So a lot of kit to sort and maintain/organise.....

This FLickr site is an Edinburgh state school, the Teacher is an avid Photographer. The Banjos are cool.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdtlog/

I have do be able to demo or teach this stuff too


hgcthem3 by Scotstechy, on Flickr

sketchadayrender by Scotstechy, on Flickr

 

[dwardo]

Kids are still shocked that some planks, like cedar, weigh almost nothing. And aluminium is so light. When I started teaching, kids believed everything I said eg 'these are growth rings showing how old a tree is' 'this is pure latex rubber used to clean the sander, it comes from tree sap, the rubber tree' 'this wood was gorwn in Brazil' - but now they don't always believe me, maybe the hyped web generation.......

CDT is called Techy in Scotland. See my work link for some school stuff. We do everything from chisel joints with/without mallets and Mortise chisels, mortise machines, biscuit jointers, MIG and MMARC welding, spot welding, forging, brazing, scrollwork, metal turning - knurling, thread cutting, vaccuum forming, then we do 3D Modelling on the PCs, Graphic design etc etc. So a lot of kit to sort and maintain/organise.....

This FLickr site is an Edinburgh state school, the Teacher is an avid Photographer. The Banjos are cool.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdtlog/

I have do be able to demo or teach this stuff too


hgcthem3 by Scotstechy, on Flickr

sketchadayrender by Scotstechy, on Flickr

Very soul warming that its still so comprehensive and more so with the aid of technology. I hope my littlun will know how to work wood well before he gets to high school and learn about the amazing diverse material that wood is. Our CDT teachers were as much role models as they were teachers.

Thread hijack over sorry Stanleythecat.

 

[British Red]

STC.

Give them a length of 1" manilla or hemp rope. Dead easy to push a knife between the fibres. now try to push cut across the fibres.

Thats how I show people