My wife gave me enough lumber for Christmas this year so that I could finally build a work bench. She was kind enough do have some precutting done at the lumber yard (mainly to fit the lumber into our car) and, since she is as pro-metric as I am, the cuts were all done in rational SI. Here's some observations I made: �2x4's� are not made equal. They tend to vary in the �2� dimension from 37 mm to 40 mm. The �4� dimension was consistently 89 mm. My father told me of a time, not so long ago, when houses were build out of rough lumber that was actually 2-in x 4-in. As recent as 20 or so years ago it was planed by 1/8-in on side to be 1-3/4-in x 3-3/4-in (44.5 x 92.3 mm). Now the size is 1-1/2-in x 3-1/2 in... approximately. Now in Canada houses cannot use lumber smaller than a �2x6� (38 x 140 mm) for the main walls. The �3/4-inch� plywood I used was not 3/4-inch thick. The label on the sheet was � 18.5 - 4 x 8 CSP Standard � Translation: 18.5 mm thick, 4-feet x 8-feet. In fact it was exactly 18.5 mm (0.728-in) wide according to all my measuring tools. Finally a sheet of peg-board (pressed board with a grid of holes) had a label � 1/4" 4' X 8' 6mm Standard Perf Made in Canada �. The holes in the peg board were all 1-in apart, the sheet size was 4-feet x 8-feet, but the thickness was 6 mm (0.236-in), not 1/4-in. With all these changes in material sizes/requirements I feel the arguement that �new metric sizes would be difficult to use since old houses are not metric� does not hold any water. Carpenters could make due as they have had for years. It would be so simple for us to convert to metric construction... if someone in a place of authority had the mind to do so. btw... I build my 175 cm long, 60 cm wide, and 90 cm tall workbench completely with SI units. No problems at all. I could only imagine how difficult it would have been to use all those fractions of an inch in place of millimetres. greg -- ======================================================= Gregory Peterson & Tammy Booth Peterson location: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. co-ordinates: 52�05'54" N, 106�36'00" W URL: http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/gregtami/metric.html "Looking? Found someone, you have, I would say, hmmm?" -- Yoda, Jedi Master
[USMA:10107] Canadian lumber
Gregory. Peterson & Tammy Booth Peterson Sat, 30 Dec 2000 09:45:23 -0800
