Handy Nation

Planning is everything. There is nothing worse than trying to build something on the fly, and realizing that your finely crafted spice rack you built for your Mother-in-law, is a half inch too small. Why? Because you were’nt aware that a 1″ by 2″ is actually ¾” by 1½”.

When planning to build anything, I keep this handy dandy chart around. I can calculate my cut schedule and material usage, and buy accordingly.

I know you feel like you’re getting jacked when you buy a 2″ by 4″ and only get 1¾” by 3½”, but that’s just not how it works. When a log comes into the mill, it’s a fresh cut tree full of water. It’s milled down to 2″ by 4″ and heads into a drying facility. Once it’s all dryed out, you end up with the nominal dimensions of 1¾” by 3½”.

If you want to print out a copy or two of our Nominal Wood Dimensions chart, here’s a PDF for ya!

Tags: plans, project, wood dimensions

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 at 7:00 am and is filed under From The Handyman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.