George wrote:

In high school, he turned his own baseball bats - four part laminated
bats that had quarter sawn rain all the way round - and "boned" them
on the lathe to compress the surface wood. Harder bats make balls
go farther, all other things being equal.


Well, in a cylinder, that's impossible, of course. Has to have two faces,
two quarters.


Ah - the wonders of terms and definitions - and their context.

For a sawyer, "plain sawn" (aka "through & through"), "riftsawn"
and "quarter sawn" describe a procedure for sawing up a log.

To a lumber grader it's how the grain intersects the "show face"
that's the criteria.

To the furniture maker looking for "flecks" in oak, sycamore and
other woods with prominent medullary rays it's the visible flecks
on the show face of the board.

To a structural engineer it's the structural strength of the
material
and how the grain orientation affects strength that's important.

And to an instrument maker looking for tone, it's yet another set
of critria for the definition.

Technically, quarter sawn is when the growth rings intersect
the show face anywhere between 75 and 90 degrees acrossed
the entire show face.

If you're a furniture maker who wants table or chair legs to
have "straight grain" (as opposed to "arch/flame/cathedral"
grain) on at least two show faces, preferably on all four show
faces - perhaps to have a "fleck pattern" on the show faces
- a piece of square wood with grain intersecting each face at
45 degrees is what you look for when asking for "quarter
sawn" boards.

Then there's the "radial", "tangential" and "end" grain thing.

Anyway, the idea for the laminated bat was to get as much
"quarter sawn" grain around the potential contact area or
the bat as possible. Four squares of 45 degrees to each
face would be the optimal grain orientation.

Contact Face A
+----+-----+ +----+-----+
Contact |\\\\|////| | | | | | | | | | |
Face +----+-----+ | | | | | | | | | |
B |////|\\\\| | | | | | | | | | |
+----+-----+ +----+-----+

Was an interesting side track though.

And when it comes to athletes and their equiptment,
if voodoo works they'll use it (along with human growth
hormones, steroids and other "performance enhancing
drugs"). Then there's the Placebo Effect - if you think
it will help - it just might.

charlie b