Ehh... you need to be careful for what purpose is the statement being
made.

Face and edge mean very specific things when you are considering
grain. Edge grain is very different than face grain in terms of
apperance and somewhat structurally when gluing. However, even that
has some ambiguity because you cut wood from round logs.

So if you cut a 4" square timber from the center of an 8" round log it
has face grain on 4 faces.

However, if you slice a 1" thick board from the same round log (rather
than a 4x) it has face grain on the wide "faces" and edge grain on the
thin sides. The face always shows edges of rings to varying degrees
while the edge shows to varying degrees the faces of rings. The piece
cut from the center of the log will have an edge grain with almost
completely the face of a ring. Confusing enough?

An edge to edge glue joint is super strong. A face to face glue joint
is super strong. An edge to face glue less strong. This last sentence
is conjecture on my part but it seems to bear out in my experience but
matbe because edges are usually narrow and faces usually wide so the
joint has available leverage to break it.


On Mar 24, 10:18*am, wrote:
Sooooo..... *being nonprofessional, I found myself doing a double-take when
magazine articles use the word "width" when I would have expected "length",
or vice versa.

It took a couple decades, but I finally came to the conclusion that "width"
means "across the grain"...."length", along it.....irrespective of *the
actual dimensions of the board (a board could be much wider than its length,
and up until my new understanding *I would have reversed the words, to apply
"length" to the longest dimension).

And then p29 in the current WOODSMITH, in discussing how to make crossgrain
splines, says to "cut the splines to width (length)." aaaaack!
I do see what, in their normally helpful way, they are talking about.....but
got me to thinking.

Which led to my overthinking things and now I have a need to know.

Let's say you have a board that is *1" thick, 3" wide, 6" long.
The "ends" are where the grain shears off.
The "edges" are the thinner sides.
The "faces" are the wider sides.

But if I were to rip a thin strip off ...say 1/2" *wide, so that the smaller
"board" is *1 x 1/2 *x 6...have the "edges" and "faces" changed places?
Is the "edge" still the thinner (1/2") side?
If I rotate that board axially, the wider side (1") looks like a "face" to
me. *Or is there some subtle grain differentiation that I don't get?

Or did I overthink myself into stupidity?

john