thick 'n thin puzzlement

Frank Fusco

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Mountain Home, Arkansas
We have a wood sidewalk leading from the house to street. Recently, one of the board warped and turned upwards. Dunno why now, house is 13 years old. :dunno: It wasn't rotted but warp it did.
Enneyhow, I had a 'honey do' to fix. Took up old board and discarded. When I did, it seemed a bit thin to me but I have lousy skill at judging sizes. Just figgered it was a hunk of treated 2x6.
Wasn't. When I laid the new cut piece in it stuck up, was thicker than existing boards in the walk. I knew the old piece was thicker than a one bye which, of course is really not a full 1" thick. Measured the hunk took out and found it was exactly 1" thick. Dunno why or what advantage an odd ball size would have. :confused:
Good thing I have a planer. Ran the hunk of 2x6 through until it was down to 1" thick and screwed into place.
Anybody have an idea why this walk would be made with such a strange dimension wood? :huh:
 

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exact 1" made not be so strange, this board could be very old, can you measure the other boards without pulling them up
 
Slandered decking is 5/4 X 6
Translated to 1" X 5.5" in the real world.:thumb:

Hokay...thanks. Learned something new. The walk and my whole deck is same 1". Makes sense whoever built it didn't plane down all that for no reason. If I ever have to make more repairs I'll just go to my friendly local lumber yard and get right stuff.
BTW: After 13 years, here in the Ozarks, the wood is all still solid. Ends of posts resting on concrete are solid also. Gives a lot of confidence in the old style treated wood.

OK, now wat does "slandered" mean? :dunno:
Yes, Vaughn, I'll probably Google it before someone answers. :rolleyes: It's just more fun here.
 
It is my understanding that most dimension lumber is named by it's rough sawn size. Like Chuck said they call it 5/4 because it's milled that way and finished (edged, planed, straight-line-sawed, etc.) to 1". Actually many of the conifer species are milled to 1-1/8 " to finish to 4/4 because there is less waste from wood movement. For us woodworkers it's good to know a little about how much different species move during kiln drying so you know how thick a board to start with. I just sawed some elm logs and am wishing I sawed them a little thicker than 5/4 because they sure moved during drying.

The small change in rough sawn thickness transilates to big money on volume for the bigger mills.
 
Something like that Jim:thumb::thumb::thumb::rofl::rofl:

No problem, we all missspeiel now and then two.
Kinda wat makes things fun around here.
But, now I have a new puzzlement. Why? After all, we have standard one and two byes all over the place. My replacement piece came out of a pile I have of saved unused lumber. To get the official deck stuff I would have had to drive to the lumber yard, probably buy an 8' length, drive home cut, install and still have a 4' piece of waste to toss on the pile. Oh, well.
 
frank, use all the 2x4 and 2x6 pressure treated for adirondack chairs.
I can send you plans, simple beautiful plans I have that you can put together 2 chairs in a weekend. Most comfortable adirondack chair Ive ever sat in.
pm me with your email if you want the plans.
Ive been mixing cedar decking(comes in the same 5/4 size from the borg) along with pressure treated to turn out a few chairs lately here and there(non profit chairs)
 
frank, use all the 2x4 and 2x6 pressure treated for adirondack chairs.
I can send you plans, simple beautiful plans I have that you can put together 2 chairs in a weekend. Most comfortable adirondack chair Ive ever sat in.
pm me with your email if you want the plans.
Ive been mixing cedar decking(comes in the same 5/4 size from the borg) along with pressure treated to turn out a few chairs lately here and there(non profit chairs)

Appreciate the offer but am currently about a dozen projects behind. Mebbe next summer.
 
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