Wood measurements

[ldimick]

OK. Don't laugh over a real stupid question. When a board is described as being 4/4 or 5/4 or 8/4 what does that mean?

 

[vick]

it is in quaters of an inch
4/4 = i inch thick
8/4 would be 2 inches

 

[Ron in Drums PA]

4/4 = 1"
5/4 = 1-1/4"
8/4 = 2"

 

[smoky10]

Originally posted by vick
<br />it is in quaters of an inch
4/4 = i inch thick
8/4 would be an inch and 1/2 thick

8/4 is 2", 6/4 is 1 1/2"

 

[Tea Clipper]

Not to hijack Lynn's question, but is 4/4 really, really 1.0" ?? I ask because a two by four at the lumber yard is *not* two by four, it's like 1.5" by 3.5". What's up with that?!

 

[Fred in NC]

However .....

4/4 after planing is more like 3/4"... they refer to the rough cut size.

 

[Ron in Drums PA]

Originally posted by Tea Clipper
<br />Not to hijack Lynn's question, but is 4/4 really, really 1.0" ?? I ask because a two by four at the lumber yard is *not* two by four, it's like 1.5" by 3.5". What's up with that?!

It's measured by rough cut size before it's surfaced

 

[Chuck Key]

4/4 is 1 inch rough rough on two sides. S2S would be something like 13/16ths.

 

[rtparso]

4/4 is 1 inch rough rough on two sides.

But that depends some on who cut the wood. I have bought rough cut that is less then 1 inch beacuse "it was 1 inch wet" and I have bought a lot that was near 5/4 and could almst be surfaced to 1 inch. Just the way it goes.

 

[TomServo]

I've seen surfaced wood that was 4/4 and 1" S2S... Bottom line, take your moisture meter (if you have one) and your ruler/calipers when you buy wood

 

[alamocdc]

Lynn, the dimenions posted so far are correct, but this type of numbering usually applies to rough cut lumber. Care should be taken, however, because the dimensions are not neccessarily applied the same by all. For example, they should be fairly accurate when dealing w/kiln dried stock. On the other hand, if the lumber was milled by someone w/a portable sawmill, it may have been dimensioned while wet and this can change (sometimes drastically).

 

[woodwish]

Since all wood is rough cut green the 4/4 refers to green size. I have never seen any 4/4 lumber that was 1" when dried. Most of the 4/4 wood I get for flat work is only 13/16" rough planed at best. Believe or not 2x4's start out 8/4 x 16/4 but the shrinkage in fast growing pine used for framing it much more than hardwoods usually.

So my question here for the non-US members is what do they call 4/4 lumber is countries that use metrics? Just curious.

 

[Mudder]

Some good reading:

http://advantagelumber.com/sizes.htm

http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Lumber_measurement.html

http://www.robson.org/woodfaq/woodfaq_4.html

Hope this makes things clearer.