The two-by-fours at your local home center are not 2 inches thick or 4 inches wide…not anymore at least. They spent several weeks at that size though. The sawmill cut them to that size to stack and kiln dry, and then when removed from the kiln they are then milled straight and square. Used to be they would sell the rough stock to carpenters who would do the milling themselves, but then they figured out that the railroads were charging them a fortune to ship a lot of wood that was going to be ground to sawdust anyway, so they started milling the boards before shipment. Same amount of construction lumber arrives at the construction site and it took less fuel for the locomotive to deliver it.
Comment on 2x2 lumber at Home Depot is now 1.28x1.28. Nominal size is supposed to be 1.5
Carighan@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Shouldn’t the normal size be 2? Given, well, the name?
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 7 months ago
they are then milled straight and square
Lol. Trying to find lumber that’s straight and square is a pipe dream these days.
Wrench@lemmy.world 7 months ago
It was straight and square when it was milled. Problem is that the big box stores cut corners during the kiln drying phase, so the boards have a ton of moisture still in them. As that dries, the boards twist and cup.
Plus poor protection from the elements at each storage step, which means rapid temp changes, which also causes wood movement.
Go to a local lumber yard. They tend to do a better job at kiln drying. You’re still going to have warped boards, but far fewer in my experience.
pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 7 months ago
Yeah, once I get my garage sorted out (and buy a jointer or make a Jig for my planer) I’m going to start getting rough cut lumber and finish it myself.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 7 months ago
I have to talk to someone at the lumber yard though …
limelight79@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I’ve had better luck at a real lumber yard, instead of the big box stores.
XeroxCool@lemmy.world 7 months ago
It’s the same 10 pieces on the top of the pile for weeks. Everyone is reaching for the pieces under.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Which is why I buy stock rough sawn and mill it myself.
pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 7 months ago
That’s my plan once I find a used jointer for sale.
aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Lumber is weird because it has been industry standard to lie about dimensions since before the US existed so it’s just kinda a thing they get to do
cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 7 months ago
No its not Maybe in the US? At least here, it is and has to be, very precise especially when it comes to industry quality. It is precise down to the mm!
BruceTwarzen@kbin.social 7 months ago
Yeah but they measure in feet and cheesburgers.
conditional_soup@lemm.ee 7 months ago
And lies, don’t forget the lies
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 7 months ago
How does that work when wood varies due to moisture content? If they give precise mm measurements, only 20% of boards will meet those criteria.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Construction lumber, especially pressure treated lumber, is sold so wet I don’t think it really matters. I’ve actually never tried to calculate wood movement for construction lumber because who the fuck cares? But for furniture lumber which is dried to between 6 and 14% moisture, there is a formula:
width of the board in inches x percentage of moisture change * expansion coefficient for a particular species.
Yellow pine (extremely common construction lumber) has an expansion coefficient of .00263. A 2x4 (actual dimension 1.5" by 3.5") that undergoes a 4% moisture content change will grow/shrink 3.54.00263 = 0.03682 inches, or just over 1/32". That’s in width; it’ll vary by less than half that in thickness. Wood basically doesn’t move along the grain; the board won’t get appreciably longer or shorter.
sukhmel@programming.dev 7 months ago
Maybe they mill, store, and sell under the same moisture conditions?
Also, how big is the difference in size and moisture for the same piece of wood? I would expect that moisture is usually not higher than 90% and not lower than 10% or something like that, but don’t know how it really is
Auli@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
Bullshit. Wood expands and contracts so ther is no way you can be precious down to the mm.
Thorry84@feddit.nl 7 months ago
That’s why the standards specify the moisture content of the wood as well as the dimensions. This is even the case for US standards.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I’ve not really encountered this wood expanding and contracting thing. Are you sure?
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 7 months ago
That’s crazy, how can you make a profit if you give the customer the exact measurement? You have to saw a bit off and pad your earnings!
pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 7 months ago
That’s not why there’s a nominal size vs actual size.
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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)
www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-p…
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.
0421008445828ceb46f496700a5fa6@kbin.social 7 months ago
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)
Auli@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
I it’s like calling a quarter pounder a quarter pounder. You are not getting a quarter bound of burger after cooking.
gdog05@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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?”
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
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.
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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.
strawberry@kbin.run 7 months ago
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"
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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.”
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
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.
WalrusDragonOnABike@lemmy.today 7 months ago
at that point, a 2x4 is 2 inches by 4 inches.
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.
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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).
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Not entirely true. I lived in a house that was just over a century old. The framing was exactly what it said it was, a 2x4 was 2” by 4”. Same for all the structure. These were mill cut, but still pretty clean. It was WW2-ish and after that we started to get planed lumber that gave us 1.5x3.5. It wasn’t even until probably the early part of the 1900s that lumber started to become “dimensional”, as in the standard sizes we know of today.
Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
How could you use bundle when Business is the collective noun?
aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
What are you talking about
Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
A group of Ferrets is called a Business, or Busyness
Magnetar@feddit.de 7 months ago
As if american measurements have ever made sense. Look up how they measure screws or wires and despair.
shalafi@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Or shotgun shell sizes and loads.
“It all started in 1840 when the dram was a common unit of measurement…”
Asafum@feddit.nl 7 months ago
And they all had onions on their belts as was the style at the time.
jaybone@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Five bees for a nickel.
Throw_away_migrator@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Expect for the .410 gauge. That one is a caliber, because reasons
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 7 months ago
It’s a wonder they manage to build anything. They have pocket calculators dedicated to the building industry. It’s surreal.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
Not everyone
Some people are gods when it comes to metal math
GiveOver@feddit.uk 7 months ago
🤘🏻
Fedizen@lemmy.world 7 months ago
every house I’ve lived in has had something fucked up in it. Even if you have one guy doing everything correct, you have 20 other contractors coming in that can’t do basic addition and subtraction, let alone fractions.
kibiz0r@midwest.social 7 months ago
How do they measure despair?
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 7 months ago
The European wire gauge system makes no sense. There I said it. I don’t need to know the O.D. of the wire, I need to know the amp rating. The O.D. only becomes an issue for bending radius and there is a chart for that as well. Nothing is stopping some a**hole from making a wire almost completely out of plastic that has the O.D. of a typical 14AWG but can’t carry any serious amount of current under the European system. Under the AWG you always know what the current capacity is.
And while we are at it, you might as well standardize your wire sizes based on copper. You are never going to use anything except copper. So your units should reflect the material. I am building a chemical skid, that has nothing to do with the distance between the equator to the north pole.
Also when is the last time you were running wires that you needed a mm of precision? Meanwhile a fraction of an amp really does matter. So should not the thing that does matter be reflected in the product?
t0bd1@lemmy.world 7 months ago
European wire gauge is not the O.D. It is the cross section of the conductor inside the wire in mm^2. It is the same system AWG uses (they are directly correlated) with the added benefit that the numbers make sense (10mm^2/AWG8 wire has 4x the cross section of 2.5mm^2/AWG14 wire, so a quarter of the resistance of the thicker wire and thus roughly double the current capacity).
Magnetar@feddit.de 7 months ago
I honestly can’t tell if you’re doing a bit or are actually serious.
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Sounds like a you problem.
oyo@lemm.ee 7 months ago
How does 16, 14, or 12 AWG tell you anything about ampacity?
someguy3@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
The convention is 2" before milling. Milling takes off 1/4", so the result is 1.5".
dan1101@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Why was that ever accepted? I don’t care what size it was before milling. If I buy a 2x2 I want a 2x2.
MisterFrog@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Is this a joke? (I know it isn’t).
Why would I want to know the dimensions of the unfinished product? I’m not a construction worker, so honestly is there any reason?
someguy3@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
I can only think it was when the lumber mill was the dictator of terms. That’s what they put out, so that’s what it was.
kn33@lemmy.world 7 months ago
They were when the name was made, but due to changes in the manufacturing process, they aren’t anymore. The name stuck, though.
sukhmel@programming.dev 7 months ago
So don’t fret. The next bundle of 2-by-4s you pick up in the hardware store are certain to be the exact same size: 1.5-by-3.5 inches.
So they can measure precisely, after all
derpgon@programming.dev 7 months ago
Ans yet this piece is 1.28
astanix@lemmy.world 7 months ago
It’s due to the milling to square it.
You can get rough cut 2x4 or 2x2 or anything that are actually that size but by the time you trim and square it you will end up at the measurements sold in big box stores
Dabundis@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I think this commenter is trying to say that the nominal size of a 2x2 is 2" by 2" (and it looks like they typo’d nominal to “normal”)
The actual size of a 2x2 is 1.5" by 1.5", and OP incorrectly calls these dimensions nominal
frezik@midwest.social 7 months ago
It was done for largely sensible reasons.
youtu.be/WaJFudED5FQ?si=7j005FmfJVr_JQL_
In short, a 2x4 was originally 2x4 inches, full stop, but it was found that this size wasn’t necessary for the strength being applied to them in construction. We were wasting lumber for no reason. They went through a few cycles of sizing down as the actual needed strength was understood better. The naming convention stuck, though.
weeeeum@lemmy.world 7 months ago
It’s weird because it’s the size of lumber BEFORE smoothing the edges. Manufacturers take this inch a mile and the 2x4 (as well as all other dimensional lumber) has gotten smaller and smaller.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 7 months ago
mipadaitu@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Even if it was 2" from the lumber yard, it would shrink or expand quite a bit depending on the moisture content. Expecting natural products to be an exact size would be crazy, especially when talking about construction lumber.
Now this is a very extreme case, but it was probably milled to 1.5" soaking wet, and shrank a bunch after drying out on the rack. That’s also a big reason why they’re all warped.
Auli@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
O that’s the size before planing.
InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
You’d think so, but no.
Short story is the ‘nominal’ size is the size before going into a planer to smooth the faces.
Yes, it makes little sense, like many things related to construction stuff.
cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Yeah sorry. The tree was originally 50ft tall so we call the pieces that. But you only get 3ft
Is like buying 1200lbs steaks because that’s what the cow weighs before it gets parted
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Better example would be raw vs cooked weight of a 1/4lb paddy.
AmidFuror@fedia.io 7 months ago
Exactly. Because it is easier to weigh the correct amount before cooking than find out you were wrong after.
But you should probably be feeding Patrick more.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 7 months ago
That’s a very small area to grow rice in.
abbadon420@lemm.ee 7 months ago
A full bag of crisps, but a third is just air
dukatos@lemm.ee 7 months ago
90 mile beach
maniacal_gaff@lemmy.world 7 months ago
It’s not a 2x4 it’s a “2x4.”
bhmnscmm@lemmy.world 7 months ago
And if you’re a fan of quotation marks you could call it a “2"x4”."
FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
You have to escape the quotes…
“2\"x4\"” or use differing quotes ‘2"x4"’
ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 7 months ago
You did that on purpose, you misanthrope.
lurch@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
ah the infamous NaN lumber 🤣
InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
[Object][Object]
Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
lgmjon64@lemmy.world 7 months ago
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 7 months ago
This one of those things that sounds correct, but isn’t even remotely true. Like not at all, not even based on anything even.
Wall finishes varies in thickness, and the milled wood also varies in final dimensions depending on moisture content.
Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Their comment made me almost consider posting an emoji on Lemmy.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 7 months ago
When I was designing kitchens, I and literally everyone in the construction industry around me all assumed that drywall was 1/2”
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Factually incorrect; the board is 2 inches by 4 inches (or whatever the marked dimension is) when rough sawn. After kiln drying and milling, it will be 1.5" thick and 3.5" wide. It still took 2 by 4 inches of the tree to make so that’s what you pay for.
KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Do I get the sawdust in a bag with it?