As I battle my way through my frame, I do wonder if anyone here has experience of cutting frames in DF from both sides of the pond. I ask, because my feeling is that my experience is not mirrored in the accounts that I've read online (knottiness and the associated windy grain, being the biggest issue). The timber seems to be quite fast growth, with the summer portions of the growth rings being quite large and soft.

Some of the knottiness in some timbers is due to the timbers being cut from the top of the tree, but even with up to 1m of "extra" length available, it's still often impossible to land all of the joints in clear grain. It's very pretty, and I'm getting pretty good at dealing with the weirdness... so it's not so much a "how do I avoid this" question as a "is there a difference" one.