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A client in my old shop told me 'the wood will tell you what it wants to be' and I thought it was nonsense for about five years.
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corablack14d ago
Okay but it's not nonsense at all. That's basically reading the grain and figuring out the best use for a board. Like, you see a knot or a weird curve and you know it's gonna be a chair leg, not a tabletop.
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spencer_coleman14d ago
Forget furniture for a second. This skill is huge for instrument makers. A luthier looks at a piece of spruce and sees how the grain lines run tight together. That tells them it'll vibrate right for a guitar top. A knot or a soft spot means that piece becomes a brace hidden inside, not the front you see and hear. It's all about matching the wood's hidden qualities to the job it has to do.
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amy_anderson14d ago
Wait, @corablack, you can see the chair leg?
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