Cottage Q&A
QUESTIONYour amusing article on metric versus imperial ("Give Us an Inch, We'll Take a Kilometre," June '05) got this female thinking. Why is it that a 2 x 4 x 8 stud is actually eight feet long, but is certainly not a two- by four-inch piece of wood? Is this some secret guy joke? I'm wondering if the length is imperial, but the width and depth are metric!
ANSWER
Men hate to lose inches. It's that simple. "In the old days, someone decided that two inches would make a good measure," says David Milton, president of the Ontario Lumber Manufacturers' Association. The trouble was that each mill used its own gauges and there was no standardization, so rough-hewn lumber was approximately two inches thick, plus or minus half an inch. Then it dried, and with drying comes something men really dislike - shrinkage. Today, every so-called 2 x 4 measures about 1 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches. Woodworkers refer to nominal measure (what it's called) versus actual measure (what it really measures). In the case of lumber, nominal measure has clearly won. Why? Imagine a construction site: "Hey Hank, pass me up 20 eight-foot lengths of 1 1/2 by 3 1/2, will ?ya?"
* Published in the March 2006 issue of Cottage Life
