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ChatoyanceWhy do our Quarter-Sawn products display "Chatoyance" that our competition's products don't? A discussion in biological terms of the causes of light reflectivity of wood sawn at different angles of grain orientation. This discussion centers around the cellular structure of wood. Two things that most of us remember from high school days. 1). The wood structure of trees resembles a bundle of "straws" that bring water up to the leaves by "capillary action". 2). The only cells that "divide and multiply" are located between the bark and the outer woody section of tree. This is important to this discussion. Another way of seeing this is the end cut of a log, showing the annual growth rings. We've all seen dated log sections. This shows us that the oldest wood is in the center of the tree and the newest wood is growing (multiplying) at the outside. So the question is how does food (sugars produced by the leaves) and minerals (from the roots, necessary for cellular division) reach the outside of the tree to feed cell division? The answer is the tree’s modulary rays. These vessels start at the center of the tree and radially reach out to the “cambian” (inner bark) layer of the tree where cell division occurs. Imagine now the visual difference in the vertically oriented hollow “straws” of the tree (hollow means “light capturing”) and the “modulary rays”, travelling across the grain and filled with minerals and sugars (solid meaning light reflecting”). The truth is that a bundle of straws sliced at any angle except vertical will expose a cavity that captures light. This is the property of wood sawn at any angle except perfectly vertical. Now consider a bundle of straws, sliced vertically showing only the sides of the straws and also slicing the modulary rays along their width. This is a completely solid surface, therefore a light reflecting surface, which we call “Chatoyance”. Only perfectly quartersawn wood displays this “Chatoyance” to its fullest visual extent. Our proprietary “Radial Sawmill” produces perfectly quarter-sawn lumber with every board. The light reflectivness of our wood is second to none.
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