[Elecraft] Real 2" x 4" Lumber

[WILLIS COOKE]

Even planed lumber has changed.  WW2 era planed 2x4 was 2 3/4 x 1 3/4.  It changed sometime in the late 40s.  Renovators should be equipped with a tape and measure before buying lumber.

      From: Jim Brown <jim at audiosystemsgroup.com>
 To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net 
 Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2016 12:29 PM
 Subject: [Elecraft] Real 2" x 4" Lumber
   
Indeed the finished dimension of lumber HAS changed. Renovating the wood 
frame home I owned in Chicago, built around the turn of the century, 
after the Great Chicago Fire, I found REAL 2" x 4" and 2" x 6" lumber.

I also removed at least 100 ft of gas pipe used for lighting. When first 
wired for electricity, wiring was run through those pipes and light 
fixtures replaced the gas lights. Obviously, they were first 
disconnected from the gas line, which was still used for heat. :)

Another thing that's changed is the sweet corn that we can buy in the 
market -- it's now much sweeter with little real corn taste. As long as 
I've been eating it, corn was always hybridized for taste, but it always 
tasted like corn. What we get now is hybridized and genetically 
engineered stuff that resists the chemicals used to kill weeds.  It  
looks like corn, but tastes like a sugar bowl.  Small farmers used to 
harvest their own seeds to plant next year's crop, and to grow corn that 
tasted the way they and their customers wanted. But when that chemical 
resistant stuff was invented something like 10 years ago, Monsanto, the 
big seed company that invented it, sued those farmers, claiming that 
some of their patented stuff had cross-fertilized those corn plants, and 
within a few years, that phony corn is all we can buy. I used to buy a 
half dozen ears, steam them, and eat them for lunch. I haven't been able 
to do that for years.

73, Jim K9YC

  On Thu,8/11/2016 9:17 AM, Charlie T, K3ICH wrote:
> Bad analogy.  The 2 X 4 inch measurement of a piece of construction lumber
> is before planning, or rough cut lumber.  The finished dimension is more
> like 3½ X 1½ which hasn't changed.


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