Actual width of a 2x10

Lee has over two decades of hands-on experience remodeling, fixing, and improving homes, and has been providing home improvement advice for over 13 years. Dimensional lumber is the structural element responsible for nearly every type of residential home being built today. There are two types of sizes for dimensional lumber: nominal and actual.

Dimensional lumber is cut to a specific length, width, and depth. However, there is a difference between the nominal size what the lumber is referred to and the actual size. The tables below provide both the nominal and actual lumber dimensions for many common North American lumber sizes. Softwood lumber is generally used for framing walls and floors. Softwood lumber comes in a number of standard lengths as listed in the table below.

Actual width of a 2x10

Chris Baylor is a woodworking expert and writer with over a decade of hands-on commercial carpentry experience. He has studied under master carpenters and also designs wooden tools and furniture, sharing tutorials on websites including Woodworkers Workshop and Homemade Tools. If you are new to buying softwood and hardwood lumber for craft projects or home improvement work, one of the first things you notice is that the dimensions by which the wood is sold called the nominal measurements are not the same as the actual measurements. To further confuse things, hardwood sizing standards are different than softwood standards, and hardwood is typically sold by a unit of volume known as the board foot , not by board dimension. All of this can make things rather confusing when you are buying lumber to make a project to precise dimensions. The term dimension lumber is used with softwood species such as pine or fir that are used in the building trades for framing and other carpentry uses. The reasons why the nominal dimension of this lumber what the lumber is called is larger than the actual dimensions involves historical practices in the lumber industry. The old standard of calling this board a 2 x 4 still remains, even though in today's lumber practices, the board has never been 2 x 4 inches in size. The actual vs. Shrinkage is more pronounced laterally across the grain than it is longitudinally with the grain , so a board sold as an 8-foot 2 x 4 is generally very close to the full 8 feet in length. The sizing standards used for hardwood lumber such as oak, maple, birch, and mahogany of the type used in fine cabinetry and furniture is a bit more confusing. Not only are different measurement standards used, but the sizing also depends on whether the stock is surfaced on one side S1S or on two sides S2S.

There are two types of sizes for dimensional lumber: nominal and actual. Measure advertising performance. These choices will be signaled to our partners and will not affect browsing data.

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If you buy something through our posts, we may get a small commission. Read more here. Due to processing, the actual size becomes smaller. For example, softwood loses around half an inch after processing. Dimensions displayed commercially are called nominal size.

Actual width of a 2x10

Chris Baylor is a woodworking expert and writer with over a decade of hands-on commercial carpentry experience. He has studied under master carpenters and also designs wooden tools and furniture, sharing tutorials on websites including Woodworkers Workshop and Homemade Tools. If you are new to buying softwood and hardwood lumber for craft projects or home improvement work, one of the first things you notice is that the dimensions by which the wood is sold called the nominal measurements are not the same as the actual measurements. To further confuse things, hardwood sizing standards are different than softwood standards, and hardwood is typically sold by a unit of volume known as the board foot , not by board dimension. All of this can make things rather confusing when you are buying lumber to make a project to precise dimensions. The term dimension lumber is used with softwood species such as pine or fir that are used in the building trades for framing and other carpentry uses. The reasons why the nominal dimension of this lumber what the lumber is called is larger than the actual dimensions involves historical practices in the lumber industry. The old standard of calling this board a 2 x 4 still remains, even though in today's lumber practices, the board has never been 2 x 4 inches in size. The actual vs. Shrinkage is more pronounced laterally across the grain than it is longitudinally with the grain , so a board sold as an 8-foot 2 x 4 is generally very close to the full 8 feet in length.

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Use profiles to select personalised content. If you found an error or out of date information in this article even if it is just a minor typo , please let us know. Trending Videos. He has studied under master carpenters and also designs wooden tools and furniture, sharing tutorials on websites including Woodworkers Workshop and Homemade Tools. Not only are different measurement standards used, but the sizing also depends on whether the stock is surfaced on one side S1S or on two sides S2S. Hardwoods are rarely sold in standard dimensions the way softwoods are. Dimensional Lumber Basics Dimensional lumber is lumber that is cut to standard widths and depths, but never lengths. Dimensional Lumber Dimensional lumber is wood lumber that is cut to pre-defined, standard sizes. Nominal is the giveaway and an easy way to remember this one. Anyone tearing down an especially old home may have encountered this. So, this example board's actual length is 8 feet.

This calculator uses data presented in the table below. Pressure-treating the wood with preservative will also result in a small amount of additional weight after the board has had time to dry out after the treatment process. This is self-explanatory.

Matched Dimensions. While it's tempting to want to reuse this stock for other applications around the house, it can be difficult, unless those other areas also use the older type. Plywood is usually sold in 4 x 8-foot sheets. Actual size is as actual and real as if you were using a tape measure or a straight edge to measure the dimensions of the stock. The wood feels somewhat thicker, but it's not until a tape measure is applied that this two-by-four proves to actually be 2 inches by 4 inches. Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources. Softwoods such as Douglas fir, spruce, or Hem-Fir a mixture of Western Hemlock and Amabilis Fir used for building framing have the following nominal and actual dimensions. Measure content performance. This can be confusing because it is a mixture of nominal and actual sizes. The length is treated separately.