Natural Defects

Planed lumber can have defects that have occurred during the tree's growth. These include:

Decay, Rot or Unsound Wood

Decay results from fungal activity. The wood loses its strength and may become soft or “punky”.
Decay can be seen in a variety of forms. These forms are known as “white speck”, “honeycomb”,
and “peck”.

Knots

Knots are created where branches grew from the stem of the tree. Size and number of knots will
affect the grade of the lumber. Additionally, the wood of the knot may fall out and leave a hole.
This happens when the branch forming the knot dies and the wood is not bonded to the
trunkwood.

Burl

Burl is a defect caused by an injury in the living tree. This causes distortion of the grain and
affects the strength of the lumber.

Shake

A shake is a lengthwise separation of the wood. Shakes are most likely caused by wind damage.
When the tree tissues are not elastic enough to withstand the stress as the tree is bent by wind,
the tissues separate. If the separation is between or along the annual rings, it is known as a cup
shake. If the separations radiate from the heartwood, they are known as heart or star shake.
Shakes may also be caused in the drying process.

Timber Breaks

Timber breaks are tiny cracks that zigzag across the grain of a board or plank. Their cause is
unknown but may be due to wind stresses or hard contact with the ground during felling.

Pitch

Pitch is an accumulation of resinous material. This is unsuitable for certain grades of lumber
because of appearance requirements. Pitch may be present in streaks or pockets.

Sap Stain

Sap stain is a variation in the natural colour of the wood. This is unsuitable for certain grades of
lumber because of appearance requirements. The usefulness of stained wood is reduced to uses
where natural finishes will be applied. Stained wood is divided into light, medium, and heavy
stained categories. Sap stain will not progress when the wood has been kiln dried and planed.

Heart Stain

The heartwood is naturally a darker colour than the sapwood. However, if the colour is in irregular
patches, it is called heart stain. This is often a dark or reddish colour, but may range from pink to
brown. Heart stain is unsuitable for certain grades of lumber because the strength can be
affected.
 Bark Pockets

Pockets of bark may be present in lumber as a result of the stem of the tree growing outwards
around a branch that has broken off. Bark pockets can also occur when scar tissue is formed
after an injury.

Insect Damage

Wood is prone to attack from a fairly wide array of insects.

Pith Fleck: Pith fleck are small darkened streaks or flecks on the face of a board created by the
larvae of tiny flies.

Pinholes: Small round pinholes, up to 3 mm (1/8”) in diameter are usually the work of an insect
known as the ambrosia beetle. The damage occurs when the adult beetle bores into the wood
carrying a tiny fungus spore with it. It deposits the spore in the wood tissue and as the spore
develops it causes deep staining on the walls of the bore hole.

Wormholes: Wormholes are larger than pinholes. Usually they range from 3 mm to 12 mm (1/8” to
1/2”) in size and they consist of elliptical or circular galleries or tunnels in the wood. Wormholes are
caused by the larvae of several insects, including longhorn and flathead wood borers and horntail
wasps.

Reaction Wood

Reaction wood or “timber bind” develops from a leaning tree stem or trunk. Once the stem of a
tree begins to grow in a direction other than vertical, the force of gravity puts considerable stress
on one side of the tree. It is thought that trees produce reaction wood to compensate for this
stress. There are two types of reaction wood: compression wood in softwoods and tension wood
in hardwoods.
 Compression Wood

In softwood trees, reaction wood forms on the underside of a leaning stem. It is referred to as
compression wood because it is compressed by the weight of the tree stem or trunk. Compression
wood has a hardened, brittle quality that severely reduces its strength.

Another major problem with compression wood is its tendency to shrink along its length. Severe
warping may result. It has an abnormal tendency to split and is difficult to machine.
Processing Defects{seosining defect)

Planed lumber can have defects created during processing and sawmilling. These include:

Trim Square

The end or ends of a piece of lumber may not be square for a variety of reasons. Trim that is not
square may be the result of falling methods or from rough-sawing. When lumber is not squarely
trimmed, it will not “end-butt” properly and therefore causes problems while being fed through a
planer.

Processor Marks

A tree is stripped of branches by a processor. If the hydraulic rolls of the processor are improperly
aligned, the rolls will leave marks on the log.

Debarker Marks

The debarking machine can gouge the logs. The debarker marks are spiral in shape.

Picaroon Holes

These small holes are caused by the use of a lumber handling tool called a picaroon. This tool
gouges holes in the lumber.

Dog Holes

Dog holes are large rough holes created by handling the logs by tools known as dogs, tongs,
 turners, or other such equipment.

Profile Channel or Notch

Some sawmills use a “chip-n-saw” which cuts a small channel or notch on the bottom of each
cant. The channel or notch is supposed to be removed as part of the operation, but sometimes is
not.

Wane

Wane arises when a board includes a portion of the tree’s original surface. As a consequence, a
corner or edge of the board is rounded rather than squared.

Saw Offset

A board with saw offset has sides that are parallel, but not entirely in the same plane; one section
of the board is offset from the rest.

Saw Variation
The sawmill will produce lumber with edges and faces that are not straight as a result of an
overheated saw or other equipment problems.

Over/Under Size
The size of rough-sawn lumber may be wrong as the result of the improper setting of sawmill saws.
 Tearing of Face

Tearing of face consists of parts of the wood being torn out during rough-sawing below the line of
cut. When planed, this shows as pock marks or small indentations on the surface of the lumber.
This is most common in cedar.

Chip Gouges
Chip gouges occur when the chipping heads in the sawmill are malfunctioning. Chip gouges cause
hit-and-miss marks on the planed lumber.

Foreign Objects

Foreign objects can become embedded in trees, logs, or lumber and cause damage to the planer.
These objects range from stones, nails, and barbed wire to teeth from the sawmill saws.

Drying Defects

Planed lumber may have defects that have occurred during the Drying Process:

Cup - Cupping occurs when a board becomes curved across its width. In most cases, holding
boards flat during the drying process may prevent cupping. Boards near the bottom of a stack are
held flat by the weight of the boards above. The top layers must be weighted.

Bow - Bow describes a board that curves along its length. In other words, when the convex side
of a bowed board is laid flat on a level surface, both ends cannot be made to touch the surface at
the same time. Bow usually results from uneven shrinkage in a given piece of wood. The most
common cause is the presence of reaction wood in a board.

Crook - A crook is similar to a bow except that warping or bending occurs along the edges of a
board. As a result, the distorted board resembles the base of a rocking chair. Crooks are created
in much the same way as bows. The only difference is that the abnormal wood is concentrated
along one edge rather than along one side.

Twist - When a board is laid flat on a level surface and only three corners of that board touch the
surface, the board is said to have a twist. Minor twisting may result from the inclusion of uneven
or irregular reaction wood in a board, but pronounced twisting is associated with spiral grain
pattern in wood.

Diamonding - Diamonding occurs when a square or rectangular piece of wood has shrunk more
along one diagonal than along the other. As a result, the board distorts to form a roughly diamond
shape at the ends. Since wood shrinks twice as much along its tangential face as along its radial
face, diamonding will result whenever the growth rings are oriented diagonally on the transverse
surface of the piece. Round cross-sections and holes bored length-wise into a log will also exhibit
distortion by assuming an oval shape after drying.

Case Hardening - Case hardening is a defect caused in the drying of wood, particularly when
kiln drying. If the outer layers of the lumber dry before the core, the outer layers are prevented
from shrinking and become “tension-set”. When the core dries, the tension-set outer layers
prevent the core from shrinking. This condition is called case hardening. If the lumber is to be
used “as is”, the case hardening condition is not serious. However, if the lumber is re-sawn, the
stress is released and distortion occurs. The standard way to test for case hardening is to use the
“tuning fork test”. In this procedure, about one third of the total board is removed by cutting a
deep groove in one edge, so that the remainder looks like the head of a tuning fork. The two
prongs will bend inward in the case of hardened wood. The two prongs will bend outward in the
reverse case of hardened wood.

Checks - All kiln-dried lumber suffers, to some degree, from a kind of case hardening. Even air
dried lumber may develop the condition, especially if it is subjected to uneven temperatures. In a
mild form of distortion, when tension stress on the outside layers exceeds the strength of the
wood, cracks may appear in layers to relieve the stress. If the cracks are confined to the surface
they are called checks. Small surface checks may be removed during planing. Checks and
deeper cracks, called splits or shakes, are more likely to form at the ends of boards, because
drying is faster at the board ends than along the sides. (The reason: moisture travels about 15
times faster along the grain than across it).

Collapse - Collapse is a server distortion of cells which occurs in wood during the early stages of
drying. The wood fibers appear to have collapsed inward on the surface.