What are wood products, lumber and other woodworking products?
The tree trunk from its natural state to the man-made element of the environment around us undergoes a number of changes that can not but affect its characteristics. The first derivative of the dumped tree is a log, which either directly or after drying can turn into a bar, croaker, carriage or board. And maybe not turn, becoming part of the walls of the log house. From one log can get a few beams or only one, depending on the desired size.
The bars differ in the number of spilled sides and are called, respectively, two-, three- or four-cant. The latter is a regular beam with 4 faces and two end faces.
Boards are unedged, half-trimmed and, of course, edging. The first are obtained when the log is cut lengthwise, sometimes even without rounding, they have different widths, and their edges narrow. The second option is a board, which is present with the edge of the survey, the edges of such boards are not completely filed.
An edging board is obtained from a log with two slabs completely removed on the sides, resulting in smooth edges of the boards. In the order of things, unprocessed timber, sawn timber for construction should be ennobled, otherwise it is just an expendable material, such as an unedged board for formwork.
Board, timber - lumber, requiring attention
Sometimes the log or beam looks beautiful, no noticeable flaws, but after a couple of years the logs of the log house have to be shifted, removing the worn out parts of the structure. The reason for this is usually rot, which developed in the depth of the structure of the wood, from the outside can be seen a tiny dark point, from which the development of the lesion began.
You can determine the quality of the beam in the same way as the logs are checked. One person applies the ear to one end or the other, and the second strikes the opposite. If you hear a sonorous sound - a sound beam, if deaf, then the material is rotten.
It's easier with the boards, the fungus can not lurk inside the fibers, and the product, as they say, is obvious, but there is another misfortune - internal cracks that often go unnoticed during a cursory examination, and knots that seem to be intangible, and then fall out.
If the boards are well dried, then the cracks found during inspection will not increase, and knots will not fall out, especially if the material is used inside the house of .But it is better to be attentive, the board, the beam - the lumber whimsical, so discard everything on which you will find defects, which we will consider further.
How to choose quality timber?
As already mentioned, the rod inside may have rot, and the board has cracks, but the latter are often present on the log and on the beam. There are several basic types of cracks, and their origin can be different. So, for example, some cracks originate in the middle of the trunk, their carpenters are called metic. The stratification of annual rings gives rise to fractured cracks. Both the first and second tend to increase when drying the felled trunk.
Splits due to severe frosts in an even growing tree can be detected anywhere, in the core, and on the review. But these are all natural phenomena. But ready-made boards also cause cracking of the ends, due to improper drying, during which the ends and the middle of the material dry at different speeds.
Knots that begin to fall out during the drying of sawn timber, turn a beautiful board into a low-grade waste product. Therefore, carefully inspect such errors on the surface of the wood, and if possible, discard materials with such defects, as boards and beams with knots are harder to process.
However, a flaw may well turn into a dignity, as can be seen from the examples of growths that occur on almost every tree trunk. They are also processed with difficulty, but in the end we obtain a quality lumber with a beautiful pattern. Worse, when the geometry of the woodworking product is distorted, but this only occurs when improper drying or ill-conceived stacking is performed.