WTF #2,531
Fast forward through the explanation to the part where I'm at Home Depot today looking at wood.
Did you know that a 2x4 isn't two inches by four inches? And a 1X6 isn't one inch by six inches? And those posts and cross beams that are called 4X4s and 6X4s, respectively, aren't?
Won't someone please tell me what the hell is going on with the lumber?
Comments
Seriously, I have long maintained that Lumber is a whole nuther language. I admire people who speak Lumber, although I speak only rough and ill-measured Lumber myself. I took a Lumber-as-a-second-language course some years ago, but have lost most of it by now.
Haha, I know, it's wacky. Processing of lumber before it gets to someplace like Home Depot has changed over the years. The industry kept the sizing conventions, though, which are now called "nominal" sizes. The wood is typically planed more now, which is one reason it's smaller, along with shrinkage due to drying because the finished lumber is produced so quickly after the trees are cut down.
Here's more info from wikipedia about it. And a bit more here
The wood was once the listed dimensions. This, however, allowed amateur carpenters to accurately gauge the lumber necessary for their various projects. Since the mafia-controlled lumber-producing industry could not come up with a way of preventing people from altering the lengths of their lumber, they chose to make the widths and depths irregular in order to require the use of their vertically-integrated carpenter union professionals for even the simplest of projects. I suggest stepping slowly back from the wood and calling a professional. Unless you want guys in dark suits and tool belts showing up at your door unannounced.
I KNOW!!! I've known of this for a while, but when I started working in Dad's architectural office, I was stunned to learn that they're not only incorrect descriptions, but their amount of incorrectness varies, too. Having known that 2x4 was actually a half-inch off in each direction, I naturally assumed a 2x8 would be, as well.
Nope. 2x8 is actually 1 1/2"x7 1/4"! I have Wikipedia's entry on dimensional lumber in the first slot of my Firefox favorites bar on the office computer, because I'm constantly having to decode these.
Then add in the international sources for lumber that use metric measurements, and you get even more fun.
Sadly, each piece of lumber is unique and must be measured. If you buy all you need for your project from the same source, at least you'll have internal consistency.