Miss the days of ACTUAL 2X6 SIZED LUMBER!!!!

[Clarence Martin]

Went out to measure the front porch steps that need to be replaced. The old boards got some rot in them and replacing them with pressure treated 2x6's. Steps are 2 steps and they have 2 8 ft boards each 2x6. When I say 2x6 I mean 2 inches thick by 6 inches wide ! Want to replace them with 2x6 's of the same size , but that is impossible to find !

[Mark Bolton]

You can easily find them but they won't be pressure treated. I don't think I even know many people who rember the days when full cut 2x material was the norm commercially. Surfacing framing lumber has been happening for a long time, you'd have to be pretty old to remember when they were " standard fare" so to speak.

[Clarence Martin]

There used to be a mill nearby that would cut dimensional lumber to exact 2x4,2x6, 2x8, ect sizes . When I wanted Cherry 2 inches thick x 10 inches wide, that is what was sold to me, planed down even !


Miss those days!!!

[Clarence Martin]

Come to think of it, when did they reduce the thickness on Plywood ?

[Jeff Duncan]

Come to think of it, when did they reduce the thickness on Plywood ?

They didn't......necessarily.....you can still get 3/4" thick plywood if your willing to buy the better quality products I just measured a couple pieces of 3/4" birch I'm working with....3/4" on the dot!

As far as dimensional lumber being a full 2" x 6" that was well before my time....probably close to a hundred years since lumber commonly came that way. I'm not sure PT lumber ever came that way standard It's not difficult to find lumber that's true 2" x 6", any local shop should be able to supply that for you. Finding it in PT.....sorry I can't help you there BTW that's a pretty beefy tread if this is for a residential property? Don't think Ive ever seen 2x material used for treads unless they were high traffic public situations?

good luck,
JeffD

[Mark Bolton]

Come to think of it, when did they reduce the thickness on Plywood ?

A very long time ago. I too have a mill that will sell me kiln dried and surfaced lumber at my desired dimension, however the fact is still the same, YOU PAY for the footage they shrink away with the drying, and plane away with the surfacing.

The simple fact of the matter is you pay for ALL the wood. Even the stuff they haul off as sawdust. That money has to come from somewhere, and your the one forking over the money.

You can walk into nearly any supplier tomorrow and tell them you want a kiln dried board, southern yellow pine, and dimensions are to be 2"x6"x96" and thats what you will get, though you may have to wait for it to be produced. The price for that board will equate to the board footage of the rough stock it took to make it (something like 2 1/2 x 7 x 102) plus the cost of kiln drying, plus the cost of surfacing.

I can only imagine at that point you would find the price of a 2x6x8 PT board at Lowes a little more attractive.

Just because you dont have a supplier near to you doesnt me you cant get it. You can, but you'll likely not want to pay the price.

[Clarence Martin]

Prices were not bad when they sold them a couple years ago. Red Pine that I bought for 2 heavy picnic tables was .50 a Bd Ft. Pine 2x4's and 2x6's were .70 a Bd Ft. Of course, this was all air dried stock.

[Jim Andrew]

If you want a wood that will stand up to weather, just use white oak. Have your local mill cut it full dimension. Problem solved. Of course you will have to drill the holes and screw it together, but it will last a long time. Longer if you treat it.

[Peter Quinn]

Went out to measure the front porch steps that need to be replaced. The old boards got some rot in them and replacing them with pressure treated 2x6's. Steps are 2 steps and they have 2 8 ft boards each 2x6. When I say 2x6 I mean 2 inches thick by 6 inches wide ! Want to replace them with 2x6 's of the same size , but that is impossible to find !

I can "find" rough 2X6's at at least 4 locations within 30 minutes of my location, more if I go just a bit further. There are lots of small mills around that stock wood for restoration work, or for those who think they are being cheated by dimensioned lumber. So not impossible to find everywhere. Question in my mind is, why? I live in an old house full of undimensioned lumber, most of it was probably milled locally, probably pine of some sort. No great joy to deal with, splinter city, hard to mark with a pencil, doug fir is a fair bit stronger, even at is slim relative size, and way easier to build with. Today you can get things like IPE or Cumaru for exterior treads, do your part to devastated the rain forest, lasts nearly forever, so hard it blunts bugs teeth, more than strong enough at 1 1/2" thickness. I like to walk bare foot so pressure treat is out for me. I don't like the tingle of ACQ or worse between my toes.


Ok, enough sardonic pondering, if you are passionate about the thick lumber, make it happen, find a local sawyer, make your request, pick a good species, still functional long after we are history....pick a bad species, get a good decade of reasonable service before the mail carrier sends you a nasty note about your stairs. Or frame it solid and use plastic.......did I say that out loud?

[Bill Neely]

I'm 70 years old and finished lumber has been less than the nominal dimension for as long as I can remember. Plywood at one time was layed up to the nominal dimension and sanded to the actual dimension - that practice is out the window for most mfgs.

[Joe Scharle]

During WWII the US gov. decided the actual dimensions, since it was the only buyer of lumber for a few years.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

As stated by one earlier poster. I can get plywood that is actual dimensions. I just built a router station using 3/4" oak plywood. The plywood measures an actual 3/4" thick. It was fun using my router bits and dado blades without making any corrections for the dimension! The plywood isn't cheap, however.

Dimensional lumber has been less than stated size all of my life.

[scott vroom]

"Miss the days of ACTUAL 2X6 SIZED LUMBER!!!!"

Martin, unless you're pushing 100 years old you weren't around when a 2x6 measured actual 2x6.

If some of your steps are rotted then most likely others will soon follow. Just replace them all and be done with it. If that's too much work, then mill a couple of boards in your shop to match the existing steps.

[John Stankus]

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/misc/miscpub_6409.pdf
This is a history of lumber sizing. It looks like the sizes shrunk by about 4% every 10-20 years from 1909 to the 1960s

John

[Pat Barry]

Similar topic - green treated decking boards. I went to buy some to replace existing decking boards and the new ones are at least 1/16" thicker. How the heck did that happen? Now there are trip points where the old and new boards lay next to each other. Very frustrating!!