OT: Hardwood vs Softwood

Doug fir is commonly used in buildings -> softwood. (ditto pine, etc.)

Pine is a soft wood.

However furniture makers are using it now so they can filch way too much for cheap shit furniture out of our "modern" pants down past the asscrack generation of idiots.

Jeez, your binary group cross post crap is lame.

Thanks for the confirmation. ...Jim Thompson

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Commonly, yes. I'd guess it's a near-certainty for houses built in the last 50 years or more.

Older houses in some sections of the U.S. might have studs or beams harvested from e.g. east-coast hardwood forests. An old enough building might even have structural members made from chestnut... "reclaimed" chestnut planks and beams from old country barns can be highly sought after by furniture builders and those who want "classic" hardwood flooring.

Somebody found a stand of American chestnut trees in some isolated mountain valley, so they're liable to be spreading over village smithies again soon. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Unless it is something unusual it is. Mostly pine of some kind. I have seen some of the old pine 2x4s that for whatever reason seemed to be very hard to drive a nail through. Maybe hartwood ?

Hard wood is too expensive to use for framing material where it is just going to get covered up.

Well, as I understand it, the problem isn't lack of original tree stock to work with. Old American chestnut stumps have been "re-sprouting" for years, but the shoots don't survive for very long... the blight fungus gets to them and they die. The surviving American chestnut trees are the ones which have been geographically isolated from the blight.

There *is* reason to hope, though. I saw an article a couple of months ago about a particularly elegant little bit of genetic engineering that's being tested out now. Somebody has figured out how to transplant one specific gene from wheat plants into chestnut. This gene enables wheat (and, now, chestnut) to manufacture an enzyme which breaks down oxalic acid. It turns out that oxalic acid is what the chestnut blight fungus generates and excretes, in order to attack the wood of its host trees and enable the fungus to spread into the wood. A chestnut tree with this gene and enzyme can detoxify the acid... in effect, turning the blight fungus from a deadly disease into a harmless "bark rider".

Since the gene is one that has been present in a human food crop that has been widely consumed for thousands of years, there's good evidence that it's safe for humans. Testing is underway to make sure that the presence of the genetically-modified chestnut does not have adverse effects on the forest ecosystems in which it's raised... the article I read said that all looks good.

So, within a few years, the developers hope to have American chestnuts (not American x Chinese chestnut cross-bred hybrids) available for sale in a blight-resistant cultivar. Replanting of east-coast forests, and restoration of American's rich heritage of chestnuts and chestnut wood, seems possible.

Wood gets harder as it gets older.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

By definition of "softwood" is coniferous, so yes it is softwood (assuming the house was built in the last hundred years). It might be Southern Yellow Pine, which is rather hard, though. ...much harder than balsa, which is a hardwood. ;-)

Jim,

I had a customer once (female) ask that I don't get my step ladder to close to her kitchen cabinets because they were made of softwood. She did not want my ladder doing any damage to the cabinets if it was against the wood.

Very TRUE story.

Les

I haven't seen it much in homes, but office spaces have been using S shaped steel 2 bys for some time now. Some regions are mandating sprinklers in new home construction for fire safety. I expect steel wall studs may be coming along soon.

Some residential studs, especially on exterior walls, are structural. The steel wall studs are definitely not structural, their purpose is to make reconfiguring internal walls quick, at minimal cost and dead weight.

Jon

On 3/17/2015 3:28 PM, Jon Elson wrote:> rickman wrote: > >> On 3/16/2015 1:51 PM, Jim Thompson wrote: >>> I'm guessing studs in the walls of a house are likely to be >>> "softwood"? >> >> I haven't seen it much in homes, but office spaces have been using S >> shaped steel 2 bys for some time now. Some regions are mandating >> sprinklers in new home construction for fire safety. I expect steel >> wall studs may be coming along soon. >> > Some residential studs, especially on exterior walls, are structural. The > steel wall studs are definitely not structural, their purpose is to make > reconfiguring internal walls quick, at minimal cost and dead weight. > > Jon

Jon's post is messed up so that I can't reply to it. Sooooo....

So? I don't get your point.

I haven't seen an interior structural wall in a residential home that was built in the last 60 years. So?

"Hardwood" just means "the tree has broad leaves" and "softwood" means "the tree has needles".

Yes, probably pine most likely.

Most likely fir. Pine is more expensive.

All these years, I thought whitewood was pine :) It could even be poplar by some sources.

I've never used the term but Wiki says "whitewood" is spruce. Poplar is a pretty hard wood and a hardwood. ;-)

Right - a lot spruce, a lot fir, and others - even like hemlock. I think the poplar is a regional specialty.

It seems to depend on who uses the term.

I never metasequoia I didn't like!

Tim