The 26F refers to the allowable bending stress at the "bottom" face of the beam. The V4 or similar is the combination symbol and is critical to your specification.
"V" indicates Visual grade for strength and has nothing to do with the architectural appearance of the beam.
Architectural appearance is determined by the following terms and has nothing to do with strength: "industrial appearance, architectural appearance, premium appearance"
A glued laminated beam consists of multiple laminations, each of which, consistent with its final manufactured location in the glulam section, experiences a different load demand upon it. for example, only the outermost lamination on the bottom face of the beam will experience the demand of the 'extreme fiber in tension' under bending loads. The lamination at the neutral axis will not experience that load demand, and therefore need not be capable of resisting the same load as the outermost lamination. the glued laminated industry has defined the strength of the laminations at each place throughout the depth of the beam so that the design values exhibited in the codes are truly there. The location and load capacities of each of these laminations must be combined in an exact order in order to insure the design capacities for the complete glulam section. Hence the term "combination symbol".
For example, a 24F-V4 DF/DF and a 24F-V8 DF/DF both provide for 2400 psi extreme fiber in bending tension at the bottom face of the beam. But the V4 is intended for a simple span beam and consequently provides only 1200 psi extreme fiber in bending tension at the top face of the beam. So, should the beam be installed upside down, or should the beam be used in a cantilevered condition, the maximum bending will not be 2400 psi but 1200 psi.
The V8 combination is intended for a cantilevered condition and therefore the 2400 psi extreme fiber in bending is available at both faces.
Consequently, one can see also, a notch in the bottom face of such a beam is even more critical. Not only is the depth of the beam reduced, but the allowable extreme fiber in tension may well be reduce too, depending how deeply the notch extends into the laminations.