davidironwood@yahoo.com, was the email he posted to a discussion. I told him there was a question here for him. Not sure if he got back to you yet...

And yes, he seems extremely knowledgeable!

Hi, sorry it took so much effort to hear back from me! Thanks everyone! What is your question? Think I explained about quartered vs. rift in my first response...I'll check back on this through the corse of the day, see if I have what you need.

Whoops! Ok, so flooring comes packaged as rift and quartered, all n one bundle. The way it is cut from the tree determine quartered and rift or plain sawn. Plain sawn is the standard oak you see, looks sort of like flames? It is sliced from continuous passes straight through a log. With quarter sawn, they literally cut the log in quarters and then cut the quarter on its diagonal, bark side down. That results in two different grain patterns...quarter sawn and rift. Rift is easiest, it is pretty much straight, vertical grain, the dark and light areas of the grain easily detected, like on plain sawn, but very straight grain. Quarter sawn displays a radial fleck, sometimes referred to as tiger oak, because of the golden rays that cross the grain. It is dramatic, arts and crafts furniture is all about quarter sawn. Essentially, you get rift or quartered based in where in the tree the saw cut hit, so even when they plain saw the tree, a certain percentage will be rift and/or quartered. The benefits to quarter sawing a tree if that the material is MUCH more stable. We specify it for wide boards and for over radiant heat. It is also harder because the grain is on edge. But specifying one or the other, rift or quartered, means pulling apart the flooring bundles and sorting the material by hand. Labor intensive and expensive. Worth it for furniture, not usually for flooring. I hope this answers your questions. If you have more, feel free to email me, just put "houzz question" in the subject line so if it goes to spam, I can pull it out and answer it.

Hi,
another question - what is the difference between regular rift& quartersawn vs 'select' rift and quartersawn? Hope you will see this even though the original discussion was over a year ago! Thanks

Hopefully Ironwood will come back to answer your question as he is a trained professional! I believe the difference is in the quality of the wood you choose. Select vs #1 common vs #2 common, etc. It may also have something to do with the lengths, etc. We went with "select white oak" and the floor is stunning. We get complements from friends and neighbors on our flooring. We're so happy to have made this decision. Good luck.

Ursuladp is correct. The ratings are about quality...select has zero knots, no cracks, consistent color, longer lengths (though all flooring has shorts...gotta have them to lay properly) and most importantly, consistent milling. No. 1 is OK...average grade. No.2 is for a rustic floor...why do expensive quartered material if it is still going to be rustic? We've done some dramatic No. 2 floors. Check out my Healdsburg House. White stain over wide plank No.2. Not quartered!

Thanks ursuladp and Ironwood for your helpful replies!