Lumber thickness is often stated in terms of increments of 1/4". What is the proper syntax for this terminology? For example, a piece of lumber that is "5/4". Is that "One and One Quarter" or "Five Quarters" or "Five Fourths" or simply "Five-Four"? Thx O
Five quarter.
Not according to SWMBO, Heh-heh.
Tom in KY, ahh, she's cute, that makes it good enough for me.
What? ? Huh?
My girl will call a 5/4 board a five fourths board every time.
And I don't care.
Five quarter as others have said. Since the standard measure is the board/foot, a measure of volume, you have to add the extra quarter into the surface measure to figure your bill.
Specifically, with no 's'.
Also, it is a unit of measure used to describe Rough cut lumber. Generally, real-word dimensions (i.e., inch and a quarter) are used to describe stock which competely dressed (jointed and planed to finished thickeness).
-Steve
Interestingly, many of the folks who make composite wood products, which needs no planing or dressing, use 5/4 as finished thickness.
I stand corrected.
That seems so odd to me. The quarter nomenclature makes sense to me in the context of rough stock because it would be meaningless to refer to it by using a smaller unit of measure given the inherent variations of the product. Sheet good are much more consistent (Borg ply not withstanding).
Steve
Sorry, I wasn't trying to correct you, merely commenting on what I've always thought to be an interesting practice dimensioning a "wood" product used in construction.
An unexpected 1/4" can loom large in some circumstances.
Women have that 4th thing in their minds. My wife is a big time quilter and "Occasionally" I go with her to the fabric store. Every woman there that measures material, call them 4ths.
Ain't that the truth. When I built my addition, the beam that traversed the garage (and holds up my shop floor) came in at 12.25" high. I was told it would be 12". The beam was placed in a socket of the wall framing, but the wall had not yet been capped. It only became aparent that there was a problem when that last 2x6 was placed on top, that the beam was 1/4" proud of the rest of the wall.
The simple fix would have been to just make the whole wall 1/4 higher. Unfortunately it was a Sunday, I did not have any 1/4" anything on hand and did not want to waste a whole day (a very valuable day because there was free labor on hand). We ended up shimming up the beam by 3/16 and using 7/16 OSB (cheap and more importantly, on hand) to bring the total wall height flush with the beam.
-Steve
Sure can. I bought some 1 x 10 pine (I guess) at Lowe's a few days ago for a project. I needed 3/4 x 9-3/8. Yeah. Right. I got 3/4 (sort of) x 9 and a very shy 9-1/4. Fortunately, I could redraw the plans, but I guess these days if you want a real .75 x 9.25 board, you buy a 2 x 12 and work it down to size. That way, I might have gotten a usable section. Or, I guess, I could have bought their premium white wood 1 x 12. It wasn't great, but it wasn't badly cupped, and had fewer knots (hard not to have fewer).
I have to head up to my local sawmill and see if he'll lay me up some SYP, along with some wider red oak. He doesn't often get white pine. This is ridiculous. more than $1.10 a linear foot for a 1x10 that is 80% scrap. I'm far better off paying $1.50 for a 1x10x8' board and seasoning it myself.
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