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Dimensional lumber tape measure
(slrpnk.net)
I hope it’s not against the rules here, just saw this woodworking related xkcd that I enjoyed and thought it might be appreciated here:)
Wait 2×4s are not 2×4?? What is wrong with americans??
They were 2x4 before drying the wood (that’s what I heard)
Not only drying, but sanding and straightening.
But in reality anymore they aren't even cut to 2x4 initially.
The hardware stores seem to pre-twist the lumber for you.
Nah, it’s just they buy wet wood and it twists as it dries. Also, places like Lowe’s likes to stack a lot of wood vertically, so they get that nice bow in them for all those rocking chairs people want to build.
You heard wrong. They use excuses like that, but truth is they can make the final size anything they want, for many years every different sawmill decided their own final size. You start by cutting wet wood to a size, you might or might not dry it, then you plane it down to an exact size. Some sawmills started by cutting to 2x4 and then planning different amounts off. Others cut bigger so when they planed it down they finished with 2x4. Everyone did something different and so if you bought a 2x4 you better pray that sawmill remains open for when you want to remodel and need more. Eventually enough people got sick of this and decided to make a standard, the current measurements are what was decided, it was arbitrary, but at least everyone follows the same standard so you can buy from different sawmills. Exactly 2x4 is also arbitrary.
They shrink?
And expand 😘
Anything to fuck us out of our money and quality products a little bit harder.
The American way.
They are until they're planed to smooth them, at which point they are approx 1.5" x3.5"
Just like 50x100's are usually more like 40x90's, or something even more insane - 39x86? Like I'm sorry, but the unit of measurement is NOT the problem, it's the centuries old "traditions" and "standards" to normalize dimensional lumber that are the problem.
At any rate, one should look at the names of boards as the ratio of their dimensions and leave the inches and mm out of it and it starts to make more sense.
2x4 is the rough cut not the finished cut that is sold in the store. If you shopped at a proper lumber yard, you can usually get rough cut lumber if you want to finish it yourself.
you know what, fuck that name. how about you dicks call it something better?
Although I suspect this particular quirk of dimensional lumber stems from the British, the result is not too unexpected for modern-day America. After all, we (insanely) deal with sales tax the same way, where the advertised price is pre-tax, and consumers have to do math if they want to compute the final bill before reaching the checkstand.
So having to measure the lumber to acquire its actual dimensions is entire above-board [pun intended] for anything beyond putting together a wood-frame structure.