OldTools Archive
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262562 | "yorkshireman@y..." <yorkshireman@y...> | 2017‑06‑25 | Re: [SPAM?] duh???? |
Tom ponders sizes… It was my understanding from away way back that the timber was cut in the mill at 2” x 4” it then dries out, and shrinks a bit - actual amount varying according to species and degree of drying. But the buyer knows what species, so knows how much it has/will shrunk/shrink Then it needs to be surfaced, and again, the amount of surface to be removed depends again on species, and what you’re using. I’ll claim to lose less timber by hand surfacing than using an el*ctr*c planer, and, as we have discussed here, absolute sizes are less important than consistent sizes (usually) unless you are making things where thousands of parts are needed to be interchangeable. So we can see why someone selling timber could only state “this timber started as a 2x4 of oak / beech / oregon pine /sycamore / birch (pick one) “ Equally, as Tom says, nowadays, in these times of collective abrogation of personal responsibility it's probably way past time that the industry began catering to the current crop of ill trained and ill informed DIY newcomers who want instant Ikea gratification and provide some accurately sized material. Maybe it would be better if it didn’t keep expanding and contracting due to the humidity. Then you could guarantee it’s size. Ah - I have the answer - we’ll use plastic. Make your furniture from the wonder material “plastic” just squirt it into a mould, and out it comes. Forget that boring fiddly hand work - you want a chair? just buy a couple of kilos of ‘plastic’ and a mould. Use your skill to fill the mould, wait for a half hour, and out pops a chair. In the EU, they’d spend five years and come out with some sort of labelling requirement, and in the USA you start am opportunistic law suit to enrich your lawyers. I can see both sides of this. Meantime, I'll just keep on taking a tape measure to the yard and buy planks. Richard Wilson A galoot in Northumbria wishing Tom a slightly belated Happy Birthday… |
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262566 | John Ruth <johnrruth@h...> | 2017‑06‑25 | Re: duh???? |
(John runs out from under the porch with the dreaded soap box in hand!) When I was younger, four-by lumber was missing 1/4 in thickness. Then, another 1/8 disappeared. In recent years it's been missing a full 1/2". Whose idea was it that construction lumber should be surfaced on four sides?! I grew up in a circa 1900 house where the rough-sawn studs were fully 2x4 after 70 years of drying. Less is not more! Think of this in Board Feet!!! Fair standards are not generated by trade associations! Throughout history, human nature has necessitated that weights and measures be dictated by fiat and checked at frequent intervals for cheating. How do metric countries handle this? John Ruth |
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262567 | Matt Williams | 2017‑06‑25 | Re: duh???? |
blockquote, div.yahoo_quoted { margin-left: 0 !important; left:1px">border-left:1px #715FFA solid !important; left:1ex">padding-left:1ex !important; background-color:white ">background-color:white !important; } I've been rebuilding an old building and the 2x4s are full width. Very clear and tight grain but I've had to wear gloves, I don't usually, but it is very splintery because it wasn't sanded with the corners rounded over like the lumber I buy today.I appreciate that the lumber today is as surfaced as it is. I don't have an opinion on the actual dimensions. Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone On Sunday, June 25, 2017, 10:41 AM, John Ruth |
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262568 | Erik Levin | 2017‑06‑25 | Re: duh???? |
(John Ruth's soapbox rant removed) I also like in a domicile of pre Great War vintage, with principal construction involving material of actual rather than nominal size. When I purchased (or, more accurately, convinced the bank to purchase for me) the structure, there were a fair number of joists with shear splits, spacing from 19.2" to 24" on center, a good bit of twist in various structural elements, and a couple hard hurricanes and winter storms (100+MPH winds the week after I closed, 18-24" of snow on the roof that winter, and so on every year since) to prove to overall soundness despite the structural shortcomings. I have repaired a number of failings, most of which were due to prior owners, such as where a section of ledger was cut out leaving a big part of the first floor joists supported only by a single toe-nail each. This is how I learned that you can get, in theory, Teco (or equiv) hangers in widths for a variety of lumber sizes for just such a contingency. Of course, practice and theory don't always match up, so I bent and/or welded up my own for some locations. The nominal sizing goes back to WWII or before, based on some of the lumber I have found and some of the references I have on the shelf, including pre-WWII structural texts that give the nominal sizes for BOM, and actual sizes for calculations. A data point in hand is 1-5/8 thick 2X lumber used for work done in 1942. It came this way from the yard, as the mill stencil is visible on a few pieces and has the stylishly rounded corners that came into vogue in the early 20th. As to the lawsuit in question, I haven't read it, but there was one a few years ago (less than 25, at least, as I was already in NJ) that the lumber was undersized versus the standard. Every piece was at the bottom limit of the acceptable range, when the intent of the standard was a distribution over the range. If building so close to the spec that the few percent loss there is an issue, things are very wrong, but I was absolutely in sympathy. Remember when 3/4 ply became 23/32 ply? and the actual size today is likely to 22/23, the bottom of the range both then and now, IIRC. *** This message was sent from a convenience email service, and the reply address(es) may not match the originating address |
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262572 | Peter Marquis-Kyle <peter@m...> | 2017‑06‑25 | Re: duh???? |
On 26/06/2017 3:40 AM, John Ruth asked: > How do metric countries handle this? Well, in this metric country (Australia) exact section sizes (rather than nominal sizes) are part of the description (measured in millimetres). In our system, logs are rough sawn to standard sections in 25mm steps -- 25, 50, 75, 100 etc (which correspond to your 1, 2, 3, 4 inch steps). Plus a few intermediate steps, such as 38mm (inch-and-a-half). Acceptable tolerance is plus or minus 3mm (eighth-of-an-inch). Timber that is sold seasoned and dressed is described by the actual dimensions -- so a stick of plantation-grown pine that started as a 75x50 is sold as a 70x45. Peter Marquis-Kyle A fan of the millimetre |
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262574 | Ed Minch <ruby1638@a...> | 2017‑06‑25 | Re: duh???? |
I ”apprenticed” on 2 large jobs over a 9 month stretch with a finish carpenter born in 1900. In the Philadelphia area. In 1974 we were getting 2X lumber anywhere from 1-3/4 to 1-9/16" thick and similar variation on width. In the mid 80’s it seems to stabilize at 1-5/8”. then in the 90’s it went to 1-1/2”. With more accurarte cutting technology, are they cutting it thinner before finishing? Ed Minch |
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