Nominal, Actual, and Who Cares?

 Before starting to renovate an old house, I wish there were some things we had thought about as to what we were getting into. These were things that we knew full well about, reality things. It wasn’t that we didn’t know about them, we were just to excited about being in the “in-crowd” that we didn’t think. Maybe it was like teenagers having sex.

I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t on the football team.

Anyway, take the size of 2 x 4s for example. I knew all about that, from college. The size of one, back when this house was built, was 2 inches by 4 inches, no big surprise there.

But wait. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that was too simple. Maybe it was due to shrinkage. Maybe not. Here’s one “school answer.”

"Eventually evolution created high production building and high production sawmills. High production builders demanded smooth surfaced lumber to work with, rather than the rough sawn lumber primitive mills had been cranking out. About the same time, dried lumber became popular for its dimensional stability and resistance to mold.

Running the formerly rough cut 2×4 through a planer (to create smooth surfaces) and the drying process created a finished piece of lumber which measured 1-5/8” x 3-5/8”.

In the late 1970’s today’s standard sized 1-1/2” x 3-1/2” dry 2×4 was created. Besides ½ inch being easier to measure than 5/8 inch, we can only assume some brilliant bean counter in a sawmill office determined this would allow the recovery of one extra 2×4 board out of every log."

If it all sounds like bullcrap, welcome to the world of carpentry. Thank goodness we’re not in the restoration “bidness” these days. The 2 x 4’s sold, say, at Home Depot, are planned by trained apes and dried 20 minutes in a modified convection oven. If you can find one that ain’t warped, and you can wipe all the water off, the size can be about anything, another reason to walk carefully.

So what was the problem back in the 1970s when actual friends and neighbors ran lumber yards? Get the picture. You have a nice wall, built by good honest workers back in the 1800s. They are all probably dead by now so you can’t seek their help. You need to replace, say, a ten-foot section. You have braced up the section missing the studs and now you want to “toe-nail” (a particularly demanding and dehumanizing technique developed in Hell by the Forces of Darkness) a few new studs in. No problem, right?

Problem. Right.

How do you line up studs 1-1/2 inch by 3-1/2 inches with studs that are 2 inches x 4 inches? That’s why when you see these “take a sledgehammer to the good and install the cheap and gaudy” TV shows, there are sometimes waves in the walls. They don’t care. We did.

There are several ways that one can make a new 2 by 4 that has that as an actual, not nominal width. None are fun. None contribute to your love of history. None contribute to a stronger marriage.

Sad to say to all my Christian friends, but none make you love the Galilean more.

Now. That was just the simple 2 x 4. Some morning when I’ve had my nerve medicine, I’ll tell you about built-in gutters.

Just a little fixer upper they'll tell you.
Some touch-up here and there.
That's all. Saving history!