Hi Chris,

Grain run-out occurs on flat-sawn planks when it's not been cut quite parallel to the longitudinal axis of the timber. It's kind skewed a bit and the growth rings move at a diagonal from face to face, so strips with grain run-out are pretty weak and will break easily. That's likely a poor explanation, but here's a photo of what it looks like. The two strips I used on the center of my Guillemot deck show grain run-out. They were some strips that I was going to discard until on a whim, I tried them on the center line. I like how it turned out.

I better answer the 2nd question with a picture too. Next post.

Ross