On Wed, 25 Oct 2000 14:36:59 Gregory Peterson wrote: >One point that Marcus missed was that dimensional lumber may have hard Imperial >measures, i.e. 2x6x8 (2 inches x 6 inches x 8 feet), but those are not the dimensions >of the wood. Thanks for reminding me of that, Greg. That's certainly true (and I was already mindful of that, it's just that I didn't notice I could have used that to our advantage! ;-) ). Therefore, their "excuses" are even more lame!!! ... Hard metric dimensional lumber could be made by simply adjusting the planer to leave a mm more on each side. A 1-1/2 x 5-1/2 would become a 40 x 140 rather than a 38.1 x 139.7. The mill could continue to cut 2x6 (50.8 x 152.4 mm) for as long as they wanted. > ? I just couldn't quite catch what you meant here, Greg. Could you please elaborate? Thanks. On the other hand, I'd much rather see them round this to 50 and 150 instead. That would be a great step forward. If they did it to the extent of bringing those dimensions to 38.1 (which is way over 10 mm from its intended original, 2"), I don't see why they couldn't "shave" .8 and 2.4 mm from this reference, respectively. It's not that it would significantly interfere with these pieces' "structural strengths". >I too would be happy just to see soft conversion in the lumber industry. I tire of >seeing the so called 3/4 inch plywood labeld as 3/4" when most of it is 19 mm. As a >matter of fact the wrapped plywood I see at Home Depot here in Saskatoon has the >dimensions 2440 x 1220 x 19 printed on the wrapping, yet the store sign will read 4' >x 8' x 3/4". > Hmm... If you see this in wrappings this may be a good sign. Perhaps we should talk to this industry to find out if they could give us a hand on this and have them settle towards hard metric dimensions that would not "upset" the industry out there (what I mean is that buyers would not "notice" the change... ;-) ). >I'd rather buy a '40 x 140 x 2440', a '4 x 14 x 244', a '0.4 x 1.4 x 24', or even a >'0.04 x 0.14 x 2.44' than a 2x6x8 any day. >... Precisely! Once things are "nominated" in metric terms only there won't be any justifications for not using metric after all! :-) Marcus Angelfire for your free web-based e-mail. http://www.angelfire.com
