Glossary.

Categories: English 

Here are some terms used in the Wood Industry that may you come across.

Air Dried: After sawing, timber planks are stacked in layers supported on batons undercover, so the air can circulate to dry them out.

Kiln Dried: After sawing, timbers are placed in or through a continuous heat kiln to dry the planks evenly and quickly, using steam and hot air.

Backing/Backing Grade or Balancer. Cheap veneer glued to a board to balance better quality glued to the face side. (Also called Good one side)

BDFT: Board foot – a unit of volume (12x12x1″ =144″)

Blockboard: Building board with roughly square shaped solid wood strips sandwiched between thin ply sheets. Usually 8′ x 4′.

Case hardened: Unevenly seasoned timber with a moisture content, which varies throughout its thickness.

Checks: Splits in solid timbers caused by uneven seasoning. (Also known as knife checks in Veneers)

Chipboard: Small particles of wood and glue pressed into a flat building board. Can be various grades and applications.

CLR: Wood clear of knots and defects.

CLS: Canadian Lumber Standard. Relates specifically to Spruce Pine Fir (see SPF)

Common: An American hardwood grading.

Cleared: Good quality wood that is free from any defects.

Close grain or fine texture: Wood with fine cell structure.

Coarse-texture or Open Grain: Ring porous wood with large pores.

Core: The central layer of Plies, particle or wooden strip boards.

Cup: A bend in a piece of wood specifically over the width caused by shrinkage.

Dimension Stock: Prepared timber cut to standard size. Also known as Standard Stock Size and Dressed Stock.

Earlywood: Part of a tree’s yearly growth wood, laid down in the early growing period.

End grain: The surface of the wood at the end of a plank after cutting across the fibres.

EMC: The mean moisture content achieved when exposed to constant level of humidity & temps.

FAS: Firsts & Seconds – the best grades for hardwoods

FR: Foot run a term used to price softwoods.

FS: Fresh sawn or newly cut from the log.

Fibreboards: Building boards made from reconstituted wood fibres. Several different types.

Flat grain or Plain sawn or Flat sawn: Where growth rings are at an angle of less than 45 degrees.

Four or Six Ply: Both made with the plies bonded with grains running in the same direction and four ply perpendicular to the facing plies. Six ply has the core parallel to the face. Both used as construction board, offering considerable strength.

Grain: The direction or arrangement of the fibres of the wood.

Green wood: Newly cut – unseasoned wood.

Grounds/Groundworks: Backing materials to which veneers are stuck.

HG: Home grown.

Hardwood: Wood cut from broadleaved mainly deciduous trees. (A broad guide only) Balsa wood is a hardwood!  Lignum Vitae (crown bowls) won’t float coarse, and can’t be glued!

Heartwood: The mature wood that forms the spine of the tree.

Interlocked: Annual ring growth with alternating left and right spiral grains.

Joists: The timbers spanning a room upon which the floorboards are laid.

Winding or In wind: A warped or twisted board.

KD: see kiln dried

Laminate: To glue strips together or a component made of thin strips of wood glued together.

Laminboard: Similar to Blockboard.

Late wood: The wood which lays down later in the annual growing season.

Long grain: Wood grain aligned to the main axis of the workpiece.

Mild: Easy to work species of timber.

MC: Moisture content the weight of water in tissues expressed as a% of the oven dry weight.

Multi-Ply: Multi has a core consisting of an odd number of plies. Mainly used for veneered furniture.

Particle Boards: Building boards made from small woodchips bonded with glue and set under pressure.

Noggins: Cross pieces of timber used to brace uprights or strengthen lengths of plank. Also used to prevent deflection.

NOM DIM: Standard widths & thicknesses when newly sawn. Actual sizes will be reduced as a result of shrinkage and planing.

OSB: Oriented-strand Board. A three-layered material made from long strands of pine (SPF) the strands in each layer are laid in one direction and each layer is perpendicular to the next, as in plywood.

PAR: Planed all round. Wood planed on all faces after dimension sawing.

Per cube: When a supplier quotes a price per cubic foot.

PBS: Planed on both sides.

PEG: Polyethylene Glycol used to treat and season green timber.

PS: Part seasoned – some dense hardwoods are difficult to season. The merchant sells out as PS with no guarantee as to moisture content, also known as Ship dried.

Plywood: A building board. Several pieces of wood veneer, depending on thickness, bonded with glue, under pressure.

Quarter sawn or Vertical grain: When a tree trunk is sawn literally into quarters. Used mainly with Oak to expose the medullery rays (white flecks). This is an expensive method of converting because of the waste factor.

Rafters: Timbers that form the roof pitch in a traditional roof.

Ridgeplate or Ridgetree: A timber at the top of the roof running the full length, which the rafters are attached to.

Rift sawn: Growth rings meet faces at more than 30 degrees but less than 60 degrees.

SE: Boards cut square on both edges

Sapwood: New wood surrounding denser heartwood.

Seasoning: To reduce the moisture content of timber.

Selects: Second best grade. An American standard.

SFM: Super feet measure. A surface area expressed in sq ft.

Short Grain: Where general direction of fibres lie across a narrow timber section.

Soleplate: Timber fixed to an installation, which will later take another unit.

SPF: Spruce Pine Fir. Very much the same properties therefore marketed as single species.

Plain sawn or Slash sawn: See Flat grain.

Softwood: Usually wood cut from coniferous trees.

Springwood: Another name for earlywood.

Straight grain: Grain that aligns with the axis of the tree.

Studs: Upright timbers forming an interior wall of wood and plasterboard.

Summerwood: Another name for latewood.

TT: Through & Through. Cutting planks from a log with parallel cuts.

Trusses: Engineered roof timbers, which form the shape of the roof. Delivered in one piece to site.

Tangentially cut: Also plain sawn.

V313: Flooring Grade Chipboard usually 2440 x 600mm x 18 or 22mm T & G and Treated.

Wallplate: A large section length of wood bolted to a wall on which joists or rafters can be borne on or connected to.

Wavy wood: An even wave pattern on wood, from a tree with undulating cells.

Wayne: The edge of a plank with bark and sapwood still attached.

Wild grain: Irregular grained wood. Hard to work and difficult to finish.

1SE: One square edge the other left with sapwood and bark on it.