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I dont know why they have to lie about it. At $5/8ft board you'd think I paid for the full 1.5. Edit: I mixed up nominal with actual.
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this post was submitted on 07 May 2024
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Mildly Infuriating
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It's not exactly a lie, just a standard. Nominal board sizes were based on the unfinished lumber size. Another 1/4 inch is taken off each side to get a smooth surface that makes it easier to work with.
Here's an old image (reddit warning)
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2F6Oy1DmXVFs0lyKxq9OmjaI-2gsPj8QO6joLlY1rB7m4.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D4fa73a2eaf8d96d4de26378be1ba9c404b210685
that shows the rough cuts of boards from a log. When they look at a log, they determine how many of each size they can get from it, and at that point, a 2x4 is 2 inches by 4 inches.
Why does the consumer need to know the dimensions at harvest when it's been processed multiple times?
That's like calling an 4oz can of evaporated milk a gallon because it came from a gallon of milk before processing (I have no clue on the ratio)
I it’s like calling a quarter pounder a quarter pounder. You are not getting a quarter bound of burger after cooking.
And here I am thinking that it was a burger for reeeeally hungry people. No delusion anymore, it seems
I agree with this. Use whatever system you need or want internally, but there's no reason to force whatever archaic or industry system onto a consumer. Logcutters also use a 1"=1/4 system and that is how they sell wood. A piece of wood that is 2" thick is sold as 8/4. Not 2". I get that they have their system but it seems dickish to force the consumer to use that system. There could be a good argument for it, but I've not heard one beyond "what, can't you do math?"
Sure there is. Look up the concept of a “standard” if you don’t understand the reasons.
Standards only work when they don’t change
It’s like a 1/4lb paddy being a different weight before and after cooking. They can’t tell you the final weight, since it’s always going to be different. Same with wood.
The woods final actual dimensions can vary, so they tell you its original size.
A 2x10 can be anywhere from 9-3/8thick down do 8-3/4 depending on how it dries.
I get that. But this is for kiln dried wood. And this particular issue I'm bitching about isn't about net loss. It's selling wood using an internally useful measuring system instead of how the consumer would actually think about it. It's adding needless complexity, in my mind, when there's enough factors to consider.
What? The final dimensions of kiln dried wood can still vary. If they say 1-1/2 and you grab one that’s 1-3/8 you get a post like this.
So you say the original size, no one needs to do any math (what complexity are you referring to here?) since the final dimensions will always be different once acclimated at the site they will be used.
The consumer (people who work with lumber) knows how the system works. You don’t, because you don’t work with lumber.
If the boards were precisely measured in mm and binned accordingly, it would help no one because all construction techniques developed for use with lumber account for dimensional inaccuracy.
Building and working with lumber is different than working with manufactured materials like plywood or whatever.
You can buy planed or unplaned wood. Called “rough” lumber which is the nominal size instead. Usually only for pressure treated lumber, but it’s available in regular too.
They don't, but every plan and instruction going back a looong time refers to things that way.
Essentially, where they make the wood calls it a 2x4. So the places that process the wood calls it a 2x4, and so on.
The kilning and planing process used to be much less regular, so if you used actual, you couldn't buy four 1.5x3.5s, you'd get a 1.6x3.4, a 1.3x3.9, and so on.
The only consistent way to refer to it was the original sawmill size, and people who built things knew you had to measure the actual size of each piece of wood, or just accept the slop.
We got better at planing and kilning, and eventually the actual size was standardized. We still had all those plans and bills of material referring to things by their nominal name, to say nothing of the actual builders and engineers who were both used to the nominal measurements and didn't think it was necessary to change. So stores kept selling things by the name people expected when they were looking for products.
Most stores now label in both nominal and actual to accommodate for people who don't know this, since buying lumber and building things isn't as regular occurrence for a lot of people as it once was.
The consumer doesn't need to know it. The lumber mill does, and the people responsible for warehousing and logistics, they use nominal sizes because saying "two by four" is easier than "one point five by three point 5."
The consumer doesn't need to know the dimensions at harvest. But the lumberjack and the sawyer do. They care about how much of the tree was needed to make a particular board, not how much board the customer ended up with.
its just easier to call it a two by four "yeah I gotta go out and get some 1 and a half by three and a halfs"
From my understanding, as tools have gotten more precise, the raw boards have gotten slightly smaller to reach the same standard size with less waste. So, 2x4 doesn't even refer to modern unprocessed 2x4s, but rather a hypothetical unprocessed 2x4 at some point in the past.
That wouldn't surprise me, but also the standard has been around for so long, changing the size of standard lumber is probably harder than changing the manufacturing process (which is likely automated and computer controlled anyway).