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Dimensional lumber tape measure
(slrpnk.net)
I hope it’s not against the rules here, just saw this woodworking related xkcd that I enjoyed and thought it might be appreciated here:)
It doesn't shrink by a half inch in each direction.
The board is rough sawn to 2x4, kiln dried, and then milled. That milling takes it down to 1.5x3.5 inches. Used to be, the carpenter bought rough boards and milled them himself, now they do it for you to save the weight when shipping.
Oh, also: 1 1/2 inches is 1/8th of a foot. 3/4" is 1/16th of a foot.
There have been a few sizing changes, old framing is 2x4, there was a phase when they were milled to 1 3/4 x 3 3/4 now down to 1 1/2 x 3 1/2...probably to get more boards from same tree.
I had an image showing these various eras somewhere...
The thing that gets me is you'll buy a 2x4 and it'll have pith and bark in the same gorram board!
Lol
Old framing was not 2x4. Some of it was, but everyone has their own size they sold as 2x4. You couldn't mix and match.
I used to do home renos. Pre sixties era homes in southern Ontario had actual 2x4s. They were all same dimensions, and using modern stuff meant making up this difference with plywood rips.
I've seen houses like that too. I saw other houses not far away (build in 1885) where the 2x4's matched modern dimensions. Still other houses I've seen the dimensions where something else. Anything since the standard the sizes are all the same.
This is about whatever was available where you happen to live at the time they built.
Most we demo'd and reno'd where sized equally and so drywall could go flush back over top, and pulling out a stud from a doorway you could reuse elsewhere to match.
There was only a few where it looked liked somebody had assembled their house from random scraps. Instead of full studs sometimes they were 3 vertical pieces nailed against 2 or 3 other pieces to make a Stud, and the dimensions were all over the map
It's not often that I'm surprised by some of the divisors that appear in US Customary or Imperial units, but I'm now shuddering to imagine what sort of horrific system of unit names have been built atop this fact of twos-powers fractions of a foot.
Knowing the English, they'll likely have invented a name during the medieval time for 1/8th of a foot (1.5 inches), like dozebarleycorn, since a barleycorn is already 1/3 of an inch. And then 3/4" might be a demidoze, or some such insanity. The horror, the horror.
Or they'd pull a Worcestershire and pronounce "Inch and a half" as a "chunnauff." Gotta get that unnecessary U in there somewheure.
2 weeks is a fortnight, so is 2 feet a fortinch?
I'm informed the British do read the time 6:30 as "half six", a shortened form of "half past six". So "inch an a half" might become "incuax", pronounced as "in-cha" and containing the unnecessary U, and an X for that Norman/French faux lineage.
Naturally, Americans would instead pronounce it as "in-coh", which would destroy any understanding when also speaking about Incoterms.
In Kentucky it's a "tuba-fur"
In the Carolinas it's a tew-bah-fower. It's made of yella pahn, bout ate feet lawng, they got a whole mess of em down at the Lowe's, most of em are sigogglin these days.
I'd say 14 inches is a fortinch duh