: Somewhere around page 11 in that article they mention that in March 1923 one
: thing the lumber companies agreed on was that "Board Feet" was a
: unit of measure used by the logging and timber industries to estimate the
: volume of wood in a tree.

: ". . . Another problem had to do with board measure. It was emphasized
: during the discussions
: that the board foot is used to measure logs and standing trees. Consequently,
: it applied in the
: green condition. Forest Service statistics were based on nominal rough green
: dimensions. Any
: volume lost in shrinkage due to drying and in surfacing thus did not
: represent a change in
: measurement but only a refinement of the original rough green lumber. The
: board measurement
: of lumber less than 1 inch thick (rough green) was based on the surface
: dimensions of
: length and width."

: Sounds to me that if a mill bought 1000 board feet of green logs, then by
: golly they wanted everyone to be sure that whatever came out of their mill
: was the same 1000 board feet--even if it had shrunk, or been turned to
: sawdust in the milling of boards.

: On page 9 of the report, concerning matters from 1922: "The August 12
: American Lumberman contained an article by Mr. William A. Babbitt,
: at that time manager of the National Association of Wood Turners, which took
: issue with the
: universally held view that standard sizes for lumber should be related to an
: inch. Mr. Babbitt
: compared the discussion of board thickness to the Schoolmen?s discussions of
: the Middle Ages
: about the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin. His
: contention was that the
: thickness of a board is related to conservation and the heart of the matter
: was utility.
: The simple fact is that the customs and precedents of the lumber industry
: were so wedded to
: ?measurement? rather than ?utility? that Mr. Babbitt?s ideas did not make
: much headway. This
: matter will be discussed in greater detail later."

: How prophetic for 1964. We are indeed discussing this in greater detail--and
: 85 years later! It really is a FAScinating article, with goodly chunks
: of tongue-in-cheek humor, and wry commentary that are not commonly found
: in government publications. Maybe it was a '60s thing.

: PGJ

Hi Paul,
I must be lucky here with timberyards. Any one I've been to have been consistent in sizing timber. With softwoods, if you are buying pre-dimensioned timbers, planed all round, it will be a 1/4" smaller than the nominal size. If it's planed for one edge square, it's 1/8" smaller at most, more usually it's to the size. Rough cut is always bigger than nominal. I've gotten those at 28 to 30mm square. Nice.
Hardwoods tend to be pre-dimensioned to the size listed. Rough sawn is always a bit bigger.
Most yards here are showing lists of sizes both Imperial and Metric. People still buy in Imperial, but the timber is actually sold in Metric.
Hardware stores size any timber in Metric only. But at least the staff actually know what they talk about.
I don't go to "big-box stores" for timber, no one there knows anything.

Mike Savage
South West Cork
PS, no matter where you buy timber here, it's usually more expensive than over your side of the Atlantic. End of supply chain.

The humour in older government publications was deemed bad for the image of politicians. People might start thinking of them as clowns. Hmmmm.