Dear Jim, I have interspersed some comments.
on 2005-03-20 02.30, James R. Frysinger at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Here's some interesting reading on lumber standards. One document, discussed > below, is found at a link on > http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/210/sccg/vps.htm > which I got to by going first to the fairly new website at > http://standards.gov/ > The document title is "American Softwood Lumber Standard" and its designation > is "Voluntary Product Standard DOC PS 20 99". Can you have a standard that's 'voluntary'? > A proposed revision is posted at the first link above, but the opening page > provides mostly hyperlinks, only one of which opens in my Acrobat Reader. I > cannot access the "PS 20-05 Final Draft Revision", the "Summary of > Significant Changes", or the "Response/Comment Form". Comments are due on > 2005 May 06. I am sending a separate email to the webmaster to call attention > to the apparently dead links. > > Trade size designations are in inches, but metric units are used extensively. > Interestingly, the information in inches for width and thickness is for > "nominal" (trade) size and the information in millimeters is for > "dressed" (actual) size. At this stage, conversions to metric units are > mathematical conversions. For example, its says that board lengths will be > given in "multiples of 0.3048 m (1 foot) or 0.6096 m (2 feet)". So the metric measures are telling the truth, and the old measures are telling something else! > Some excerpts: > 2.5 Cubic measurement The term used to indicate that a cubic meter is the > metric unit of measurement of lumber. The number of cubic meters in a piece > of lumber is obtained by multiplying the dressed thickness in millimeters by > the dressed width in millimeters by the length in meters, and dividing the > product by 1,000,000. [see Appendix B1] With a calculator, simply multiplying all three dimensions in metres seems to be just as easy. For example, a 2.4 metre long piece of 50 millimetre by 100 millimetre has a volume of 2.4 x 0.05 x 0.1 = 0.012 cubic metres. I find that shifting the decimal marker as necessary is conceptually easier than dividing by a million. > 2.14 Nominal size The size designation for lumber that does not reflect the > dressed size. The nominal size is greater than the dressed size; i.e., a dry > 2 by 4 is surfaced to 38 mm by 89 mm (1 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches). > Why should only the materials vary in size according to somebody's whimsical choice. What's shouldn't tools also vary with the mood of the moment? Check http://www.boltsantiquetools.com/ToolsFRAME.htm where a half inch seems to vary from 50 hundredths to 101 hundredths of an inch. Now that's what I call voluntary standards. Cheers, Pat Naughtin Geelong, Australia 61 3 5241 2008 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metricationmatters.com This email and its attachments are for the sole use of the addressee and may contain information that is confidential and/or legally privileged. This email and its attachments are subject to copyright and should not be partly or wholly reproduced without the consent of the copyright owner. Any unauthorised use of disclosure of this email or its attachments is prohibited. If you receive this email in error, please immediately delete it from your system and notify the sender by return email.
