two by fours now extinct?

per different sources:

- they don't make real two by fours anymore, now two by four is what they set they saw blades (plus a little wiggle error?) at in the mill, so the lumber winds up being less than two by four

- in the old days, they used to make actual two by four lumber

It seems the lumber at the warehouse building material retailers is not real two by four (though the signs say it is).

Is this pervaisve and widespread deception?

Reply to
effi
Loading thread data ...

They haven't made a fully dressed 2x4 for many decades, if ever. The original 2 x 4 was rough cut. The milled or dressed 2 x 4 has been getting smaller, it used to be 1 7/8 x 3 7/8 in the 1940's, now it has shrunk down to 1 1/2 x 3 3/8. Other sizes have done the same.

Reply to
Eric Tonks

And even plywood isn't as thick as you'd expect it to be...

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

Find an old farmer with a sawmill, and you can get REAL 2x4's. I needed to match up to some existing construction, and they were all TRUE 2' X 4" (old house). It was either a matter to get a bunch of

1/2" thick strips custom cut and nail them to store bought 2x4's, or cut a bunch of strips from 1/2" plywood to nail on, or just get someone to make me the actual 2x4. I decided to save time and hassle to just get the right size 2x4. A local demolition/recycler had a few of them, of which one was even thicker than 2x4. He didn't have enough either way. I bought what he had anyhow, since they were cheap, but decided to talk to a friend who farms. He knew of a guy who has a sawmill, and I went there. The farmer said I could bring my own logs, or pay for his. We used his. He didn't have any pine or fir, but he used poplar which worked well. He just said not to use poplar where exposed to the weather. I guess it rots fast.

Anyhow, anyone with a sawmill can make an actual 2x4, or anything you want. It's just the stores that dont sell them anymore. Pricewise, I was ahead having this guy make them for me too. They would have cost me about $1.00 more per 2x4 in the store, plus I got some slabwood with the bark, which I want to use for trim in my rec room. I like that rustic look.

By the way, I dont mind the 1.5 X 3.5 measurements of store bought

2x4's. But I really find it irritating that plywood is not the actual measurements it claims. That's just wrong !!!!

Mark

Reply to
maradcliff

Reply to
davefr

I think I will check those measurements. Been a long time but I was thinking a 1/16" under that at least in thickness, i.e., 1 7/16".

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

It gets worse.

2x6 = 5 1/2" wide 2x8 = 7 1/4" wide
Reply to
tcg

Reminds me of my neighbor down the road aways. He was over 40 and a country boy from way back, did some home building jobs (at least he called it that, I called it very crude). Came up when I was running my radial and asked me to split some 1x4 in half so he could use it as trim...no prolem, done. Comes back in a few complaining that the pieces were way under 2" wide. Educated hime about lumber sizes and also explained that he would have had to at least account for saw kerf in any case.

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

Reply to
Art Todesco

What they sell now are "nominal" two by fours. wish I could be more help. I think the real ones are "rough cut".

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Saw on a TV show: apparently in the UK a 2 x 4 and other 2 x framing "timbers" are actually 2 x4 and 2 x dimensions AFTER they dress the wood. It appears that their laws don't allow for our North American slimmed down undersized framing.

Reply to
Eric Tonks

Rough cut will vary considerably from over size to undersize. I tore down several buildings built with that stuff and no two were alike. I did manage to match up enough 2x4 to buil one 18' long wall in my addition out of it but that was it. That was by sorting through piles of it that came out of an old schoolhouse.

Final sizing of all lumber is done in the planer mills not at the headsaw.

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

Hi, How old are you? I never saw real, fully dressed 2X4 in my life time. Same with 2X6, 2X10, on and on. Tony

Reply to
Tony Hwang

You and most of this thread are mistaken.

formatting link

Reply to
Richard J Kinch

They still sell rough cut lumber here for the dock building trade. It is probably pretty close to the nominal size after it is pressure treated and before it dries.

Reply to
Greg

I'm over 60 and have always understood that lumber sizes were "nominal" and/or that they were the size before whatever finishing operation was performed.

Perce

On 12/01/04 10:49 pm Tony Hwang tossed the following ingredients into the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

I think most of the responders have little experience or certainly don't live where conifers are logged and milled. I built the frame of a playhouse/storage building with rough 2x6s about 1980. I got the stuff fairly cheap because the dimensions were not consistent and some of the lumber was under sized. Most, however, measured 6-3/8 to 6-1/2 by 2-1/4 to 2-3/8. Just prior to that in another state I bought smooth pine from a large mill that was either the nominal or 1/8 under the nominal size. My father worked on and off as a carpenter since he was a sophomore in highschool, and I remember him complaining about the change in the size of finished 2x4s and other lumber (early 50s). At that time finished 2x4s were either 1/8 or 1/4 under the nominal size. So put to bed the idea that rough cut lumber was the nominal size, because no one would try to plane the lumber just 1/16 or even

1/8 inch under the rough cut dimension. Heck the height of the roughness on dried conifer wood is often nearly 1/8 thick, so it needs to be planed a minimum of 1/8 inch on all sides to be smooth. I remember distinctly when a 2x4 was 1-3/4 by 3-3/4, when it went to 1-5/8 by 3-5/8 and current 2x4s are 1-1/2 by 3-3/8.

If you look at old building where the walls were made of 1 inch rough cut board, two layers, 1 vertical and 1 horizontal, you will often find that those board are really 1-1/4 inch thick.

That's my experience with coniferous wood. Planed wood was often the nominal dimension and rough cut was more than the nominal dimension.

Reply to
George E. Cawthon

"effi" wrote

This is a real issue for me, whenever I try to match the existing timbers on my 150-year old house. Some of these are actually oversized i.e. a 2X4 is 2

1/4 by 4 3/8.

Over the years, I've saved any reusable timbers I could, and have had a little success at finding rough-cut timbers at a local lumber yard, but you have to take a tape measure as these are far from uniform. In the meantime, I try to separate my patch jobs from new structures, to minimize the amount of mismatch.

It constantly amazes me that there isn't more public outcry about this, but to be realistic it would REALLY throw a monkeywrench in the works if all of a sudden the industry sold dressed, full-sized lumber.

Some day I guess this will all be solved by going to metric measurements like the automotive industry but that will take a long time in North American construction. But in theory it's not a bad fix. For example, 5cm by

10cm is 1 31/32 by 3 15/16.
Reply to
Dave Gower

Our barn was built (my grandfather) starting after the lumber rationing was lifted at the end of WWI (1918). Most of it is dressed, they are typically at the nominal-3/8 dimension (2x4 --> 1-5/8 x 3-5/8). Larger beams and columns were rough full-dimension (but still dimension lumber, not solid post/beam), most being 2x8 and 2x10, 3- and/or 4- nailed together for columns, for example.

Actually the -1/2" is much handier than the -3/8" for working with, despite the extra heft of the old stock...Of course, it's all old Southern yellow pine, now as hard as a rock and there are 20-footers w/ a single knot in the whole piece...

We're currently restoring it to it's near-original conditon...fortunately there was enough old lumber in the haymow from years ago to avoid the need for much new framing lumber. Did replace a portion of the sill plate in the old dairy milking parlor that had suffered dearly from all the manure over the years...went with treated for cost/durability there. Had about 4000 linear feet of fir 3-1/4" tongue and groove siding milled to match original. Could find nominal 5" but not the narrow 3".

Reply to
Duane Bozarth

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.