“Common” Terms Found Around the Lumberyard
Every industry is going to have it’s insider terminology but I feel the lumber industry has taken this a bit too far and in many instances are perpetuating antiquated terms that have no relevance to how things get done in the construction trades any longer. But that’s a rant for another time. In this episode I want to define some of the more common terms that you are going to hear me throw around in pretty much every episode to come. Off the top of my head:
- Timber vs board
- Hardwood vs Softwood
- Wholesale vs Retail
- 4/4, 8/4, what’s the deal with the quarters?
- RW/RL
- S2S, S4S
- Straight line ripped
- RGH, AD, KD
- Botanical vs Trade vs Brand names
That’s just a few of the terms and concepts I will cover but I’m sure I have missed a few so please let me know if there is something you have seen or read that confused you when buying lumber and I’m happy to talk about it in a future episode. Use the contact form to submit your questions or just record a voice memo and email it to me. Address is included in the show (got to avoid those pesky bots).
I must say, I always enjoyed woodtalk with its witty banter and inside jokes. But I know I’m going to enjoy this new Podcast so much because now I can nerd out on all things lumber. Thank you so much for making this it’s own show. Thanks for not quitting
You’ve made my day Shannon. This podcast is awesome. Congrats and great job.
Fascinating and enjoyable to listen to. Marc’s book arrives in the mail and I get to listen to the first solo Shannon’s Lumber Industrial Update (including the theme song) all on the same day. Does life get any better than that, I think not. Looking forward to the next update.
Great start to a fascinating subject. I look forward to many more.
Been missing hearing your voice. Thanks I was missing this on my weekends in the shop. How often and when or you planning to post.
I have a hard time sourcing hardwoods I know you work for a lumber yard and may be a conflict of interest BUT. Maybe a show of or even better a database of lumber yards and Sawyers would be awesome. Maybe listeners could help to build it would be very helpful.
Its a thought and I think the route is more of the crowd sourced path. Similar to what Popular Woodworking started at their site. We have something set up like this in The Hand Tool School where members have dropped their locations as well as lumber sources onto a Google map. The only issue with this is to make it truly crowdsourced it has to be completely open for everyone to edit and that’s where things get ugly. We lost all of the data when someone accidentally deleted a layer off the map. Maybe I’m a control freak but I’d rather find a bit more close source method of collecting and displaying this data. Something to think about. In the meantime I already have a “how to find lumber” post in development. As far as frequency, the show is bi-weekly right now.
Awesome! Though the audio was a little muffled in this one. I heard a clear difference between the pilot episode and episode one, with the pilot episode being a lot easier to hear. I hope that make sense. Let me know if you have any questions about what I hear vs others. I’m listening through Apple Airpods.
So glad you decided to make this into a podcast!
that’s my bad. Different audio sources between pilot and episode 1. I had just finished recording some Hand Tool School videos and my lapel mic was still on. The recording software defaulted to that mic instead of the podcast mic I use. I figured the quality was still good enough to not re-record but lesson learned and I make sure of the input before recording now. The next few are back to the pilot quality again.
Thanks! Glad to know it wasn’t my ears going. 🙂
Great show, looking forward to more.
Why no option to download on sound cloud?
Because any podcatcher app downloads it for you via the RSS address.
Could you supply a normal download that i can download on my desktop pc and then put it on a SD card for my car? That would be awesome 🙂
I do not use any podcast apps on my phone since mobile data is so expensive over here :/
Ohh, I just saw it is possible to download it via VLC Media Player. 🙂
you can also download it via Soundcloud. Just click the download button on the player itself.
thank you, just saw that 🙂
I am on my way home from the LIGNA woodworking fair in Hannover, Germany…. The lumberUpdate is the perfect podcast for my way home 🙂