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| General |
| Wood Types |
Hardwood
The term "hardwood" has no bearing on the actual hardness of the wood. Hardwoods
come from deciduous flowering broad leaved trees. Some "hardwoods," aspen
and balsa for example, are much softer than some hard "softwoods" such
as yew and larch. |
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Softwood
These come from coniferous trees with needlelike leaves--most are evergreen,
but a few are deciduous such as larch. |
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Pulpwood
Roundwood logs, bolts, or chips reduced to individual wood fibers by chemical
or mechanical means for the manufacture of a variety of paper and paperboard
products. |
| Species |
A distinct
sort or kind of tree having some characteristics
or qualities in common that distinguishes
it from others. There will be some 20-30 species of wood
typically represented in the Network. All
have unique characteristics. Go to Wikipedia to learn much more about individual species. |
| Grade |
A classification of lumber or other wood
products based on criteria of quality such
as natural characteristics and strength.
There are different grading systems for
logs and lumber. The grades provide a common
language for producers and consumers, but
there can be regional differences on some. |
| Certified |
Timber products
extracted from woodlands that are designated by some certification system. Ones listed by Network members
are "third-party certified" which
means that the prescribed practices are
inspected and there is a documented "chain
of custody" that can be traced
back through production to the forests.
Certification provides some assurance to
consumer that forests are being properly
managed for the generations to come. Effective
and assured certification systems are particularly
important in efforts to limit illegal logging
and poor forest practices world wide. A
consumer can also buy wood from excellent
land stewards even if they have not gone
through the certification process. A consumer should always |
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FSC
The
Forest Stewardship Council is
an international system covering
forest management practices and the
tracking and labeling of certified
products and paper products with
recycled content. |
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Tree
Farm
The
American Tree Farm System is a program
for certifying the practices of non-industrial
forestland owners, which is defined as owning
less than 10,000 contiguous acres and not
being affiliated with a forest products processing
facility. |
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SFI
The
Sustainable Forestry Initiative Program is
a sustainable forest management standard
targeting large industrial operations
in Canada and the United States. |
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Master
Logger
An emerging third-party certification system started in Maine,
but spreading to other states such as Wisconsin. It certifies that the
logger, the individual who has the greatest impact in the woods ? is practices
proper logging techniques. |
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Chain
of Custody
The basic concept of COC is a system that assures end consumers that the
products they buy can be traced back to a certified source. |
| Wood Measures |
This can be confusing. The most
commonly used measure of wood is board
foot. Prices are typically given per board feet
for smaller projects or per thousand board feet
for timberstand or log sales. The advantage
to suppliers is that only one price has
to be given for each grade and species
of material since length and width are
covered in the volume calculation. To calculate
board feet multiply the width in inches
by the thickness in inches by the length
in inches and divide by 144. |
| "Nominal" & "Actual" |
Lumber is ordered in nominal sizes (such as 2x4), but the actual dimension will be less because it has been milled to a finish size (A "2x4" is actually 1 3/4 inches thick & 3 1/2 inches wide) |
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Board Foot |
Large quantities of lumber are often figured by the board foot. A board foot is the wood equivalent of a piece 12 nominal inches square and 1 inch thick. |
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Square Foot |
Typically used for measuring flooring |
| Timberstand Improvement |
The practice of
a landowner working to improve the quality
of his or her woods. Common practices include
eliminating non-native invasive species
or cutting out lower quality trees to open
the woodlands for stronger growth of the
remaining trees. These practices are often
specified in the various certification
programs. And the wood emerging from these
practices can be molded into flooring,
and many other items. Here the consumer
can buy wood products that help improve
the quality and diversity of the woods. |
| Non-native Invasives |
An introduced species (also known as an exotic species) is a organism that is not native to the place or area where it is considered introduced and instead has been accidentally or deliberately transported to the new location by human activity. Invasives are a serious threat to native woodlands around the world. |
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| Standing Timber Terms |
| Measures |
Diameter at breast
height (d.b.h.) -- The outside bark diameter
at 4.5 feet above the forest floor on the
uphill side of the tree. For determining
breast height, the forest floor includes
the duff layer that may be present, but
does not include unincorporated woody debris
that may rise above the ground line. |
| Grades
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Pole timber -- A growing-stock tree at least 5.0 inches d.b.h. but smaller than sawtimber size (9.0 inches d.b.h. for softwoods, 11.0 inches d.b.h. for hardwoods). |
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Log Terms |
| Measures
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Board Feet (bf) |
International 1/4-inch -- A log rule, or formula, for estimating the board-foot volume of logs. |
Cords |
Unit of measure applied to roundwood, usually bolts or split wood. It relates to stack of roundwood 4 feet high, 4 feet wide, and 8 feet long, containing 128 cubic feet of wood, bark, and air space. |
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| Products
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Veneer |
A roundwood product peeled, sliced, stamped or sawn into a variety of veneer products (sheathing, plywood, panels, containers, sticks, etc.). |
Saw log
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A roundwood product, usually 8 feet in length or longer, processed into a variety of sawn products (lumber, cants, blocks, squares, etc.). |
Bolts |
Smaller trees that often come from timberstand improvement, or a cut portion of a tree or large branch. |
| Posts |
Posts, poles, and pilings.--Roundwood products milled (cut, peeled, etc.) into standard sizes (lengths and circumferences) to be put in the ground to provide vertical and lateral support in buildings, foundations, utility lines and fences. |
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Milled Lumber Terms |
| Styles
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Green |
Freshly sawed lumber, or lumber that has received no intentional drying. Wood that has become completely wet after immersion in water would not be considered green, but may be said to be in the green condition. |
Air-Dried |
Process of drying or seasoning lumber naturally by exposure to air. |
Kiln-Dried |
Process of drying or seasoning lumber naturally by placing the lumber in a kiln and exposing the lumber to heat for a prescribed period of time. Lumber must be dried in a kiln to a specific moisture content (typically 7%) before it can be milled into specific products such as flooring, paneling, etc. |
| Raw (Rough) |
Lumber that has not been dressed (surfaced) but which has been sawed, edged, and trimmed. Typically a full 1-inch thick. Some may be ?green? (air dried or fresh cut) or "dried" (kiln dried). |
Milled |
Planed and patterned lumber for finish work in buildings, including items such as sash, doors, cornices, panelwork, and other items of interior or exterior trim, but not flooring or siding. |
| Types |
Plank
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A cut piece of wood that has not been surfaced. |
| V-groove |
For flooring, when the pieces are put togehter there is a v-grove between them. |
| S2S |
Surfaced two sides or planed on two side of the board |
S4S |
Surfaced four side -- Material finished on all four sides. |
| End-matched |
For flooring, when the ends of the boards are groved so they can be joined together. Stonger then simply butting the end together. |
| Flat Cut |
The appearance of the grain pattern in woods can be changed dramatically by making a different kind of cut in the wood. In a flat cut, the cut is parallel to the pith but does not intersect it, and the resulting grain pattern sometimes has what is called a "cathedral" pattern that looks like a series of stacked "V" shapes, although it can be just a series of parallel lines that vary in spacing depending on their distance from the pith. |
Quartersawn |
In quartersawn, the cut is radial (that is, all cuts intersect the pith of the tree for the entire length of the cut) and the resulting pattern tends to be a series of totally parallel grain lines with spacing that is determined entirely by the amount of yearly growth. |
| Measures
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Board Foot (bf) |
A unit of measurement of lumber represented by a board 1 foot long, 12 inches wide, and 1 inch thick or its cubic equivalent. Either multiply the length in feet times the thickness in inches times the width in inches and then divide by 12
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Square Foot (sf) |
One foot x one foot, typically used in measurement for flooring. |
Lineal Foot (lf) |
Lumber priced by the linear foot means that you pay for each running foot of the material, prices will increase proportionately for wider or thicker material. |
Thickness |
Rough: The thickness of lumber is read in quarters of inches, such as 4/4 (four-quarters), 5/4 (five-quarters), etc. In rough lumber (also called nominal thickness) that has not been surfaced, 4/4 rough = 1" board thickness; 5/4 rough = 1 1/4" board thickness, etc.
Surfaced: But surfaced lumber that has been planed smooth may vary slightly in thickness. For example: 4/4 surfaced = 3/4" to 13/16"; 5/4 surfaced = 1" to 1 1/8"; 6/4 surfaced = 1" to 1 3/8"; 8/4 surfaced = 1" etc. |
| Grades
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Clear |
Very few or not knots |
Character |
Solid knots, figuring, interesting wood characteristics. |
Rustic |
Looser knots and more figured then character. |
| CVG |
"Clear verticle grian" and is a common term for western conifers. |
Clear 1 side |
No knots on one side of the board. |
FAS (Firsts and Seconds) |
First and second boards from the outside of the log. The top two grades of lumber, normally lumped into one category. The minimum quality board to quantify has 82% clear wood, graded on the poorer side. FAS generally will allow one "defect" (knot, split, rot, etc.) per board. |
Select |
Basically the same as FAS except it is graded on the good side instead of the bad side. This is generally for lumber that will be used with just one side showing. The back side needs to be sound, but can contain many defects. Many places combine the top three grades as "Select & Better". |
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Common #1, #2 or #3 |
The lower grades of lumber as determined by quality. |
Character Wood |
| What Types
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Burl |
A burl is a wart like, deformed growth on the trunk or root and sometimes even the branches of a tree, caused by (1) an injury to, or (2) and infection in, the tree just under the bark, or (3) the existence of an unformed bud which has all the genetic material necessary to grow a full branch, or even a whole tree, but which for some reason did not grow properly. In any case, the result is that the tree cells divide and grow excessively and unevenly in a process somewhat analogous to cancer cells in a mammal.
Burls come in all sizes and shapes from golf-ball and smaller to hundreds of pounds of massive growth on the side of a large tree. Burls as large as 4 feet by 8 feet have been reported as have trees with hundreds of small burls. On really large trees, such as the redwood, burls commonly exist that are large enough to be used to create veneer.
"Cat's Paw" and "cluster burl" are a couple of commonly identified types of burl figure. Cat's paw is frequently found in cherry and cluster burls are found in a number of species. Most often, burls have no sub-designation and occur in a large number of species. Common burl species include redwood, oak, ash, madrone, elm and walnut. Some exotics with very popular burls are mappa, thuya and imbuya --- there are many more. |
Flitch |
A long cut from a piece of wood that results in a highly figured pattern. Often presented in pairs after the one cut, resulting in a mirrored image. |
Carving Blocks |
Light wood such as basswood or balsam used for carving. |
Turning Wood |
Blocks or squares of wood used for making wood bowls. |
Crotch
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Crotch wood is typically harder and more dense than a straight grained portion of the same tree. Depending on the appearance, a crotch may be called a "flame crotch" or a "feather crotch" (and less frequently as "plume", "roostertail" or "burning bush") and frequently the crotch area is somewhat symmetrical on both sides of the branch so that a crotch piece cut parallel to the bole of the tree will produce a look similar to that of book matching.
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| Features
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Birds eye |
Small localized areas in wood with the fibres indented to form small circular or elliptical figures on the tangential surface which are used for decorative purposes. |
Figure |
Figure is the form of the grain and color patterns in wood that give it a unique appearance. There are many factors or characteristics that go into making up the figure, and some of the terms that are associated with figure are fiddleback, curly, wavy, tiger stripe, marbled, spalting, feather, flame, bee's wing, bird's eye, and more. The figure of woods is heavily influenced by how the wood is cut. Cutting terms to see include quartersawn, flat cut, rift cut, etc. Veneers have additional figure capabilities since they have an additional cutting style (rotary) that is not available to lumber. |
Spaulted |
Spalting is a dark vein caused by a pattern of bacterial rot in dead wood that once stabilized often looks like a black ink line of varying thickness and great irregularity drawn through the wood. Spaulting can be encouraged by keeping a dead tree moist. Spaulting is a form of decay and if spaulted wood isn't stabilized at the right time, it will just rot. I need to do more research on this, but at present, my impression is that Spaulting is something that mostly happens only in softer woods. Wood that is really heavily spaulted and still completely solid is rare, since advanced Spaulting is generally accompanied by enough decay to soften at least some areas of the wood. |
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Non-Wood Forest Products |
| Types
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There are many different non-wood products that emerge for woodlands. These include such things as mushrooms, wreathes, bark, barries, etc. |
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