Thread: Wood, Timber or Lumber?

Depends where you are, what you want to do with it,who you are talking to and who your mates are.
Regards

[Hobby horse of mine]
We are Australians living in Australia....so that negates "lumber"(American word)
We have "timber" that we use for our projects. We put "wood" in our fire to keep us warm
When we ask for timber, at our Timber Outlet,we ask for "Width X Thickness X Length X Number of lengths"
Example 90 X 45 X 3mts and I want 3 lengths.
Sheet goods-Example 2400 X 1200 X 17mm CD Ply and I need 2 sheets please (just to be courteous)

As an apprentice on my first day I accidentally asked the boys "where do you want the wood "... I got told quite firmly that you burn wood, and build with timber.... I'm not positive but I think lumber is somewhere in the middle.... I.e. A tree that has been dropped but not yet milled into timber....

Not saying that my version is correct but it's the one I use until I become more enlightened...

Hope it helps

Gab

These days terms for things are being internationalised due to multi media. Lumber was the Americian term and wood was the stuff from trees. Timber is the commercial term so you would go and buy timber. When asked about the table you just made well that was made of wood. Anyhow that was how things were but now the terms are almost interchangeable. Now just to make things clear wood, timber or lumber can be had in baulks, boards, planks, battens, beams, stringers, staves, slabs, wanes, poles, posts, and logs. I am sure others can add to the list.
Regards
John

John, you forgot platter/bowl/spindle and pen blanks

Originally Posted by orraloon

Now just to make things clear wood, timber or lumber can be had in baulks, boards, planks, battens, beams, stringers, staves, slabs, wanes, poles, posts, and logs. I am sure others can add to the list.
Regards
John

Haha, plank v's board. Man that list opens a whole other can of worms, but I haven't really had too much trouble there. There must be a bunch of names no longer used too. Not that I can think of any.

Thanks for the replies fellas. The kind of scourn you got Gabriel is the same I got from the hardware place that corrected me.

So it seems there is no rule, rather it's a geographical, conventional thing. I too have always thought of lumber being American for wood in its raw state or milled for construction, so I try not to use it unless I'm on an American forum and want to fit in. Apart from that I suppose I interchange the other two with what sounds right with a preference towards wooden being used for finished items and timber for the milled supply. So wooden boat v's timber boat. But I'd say timber deck over wooden deck yet wooden trestle and timber trestle both sound ok. Argh! As long as there's no rule I'm happy.

Originally Posted by A Duke

Depends where you are, what you want to do with it,who you are talking to and who your mates are.
Regards

Now who's messing with his head?

the oxford dictionary defines lumber as: 1. "disused items of furniture which take up room inconveniently"
2. "superfluous fat especially in horses"
3. "n_amer timber sawn into rough planks or otherwise roughly prepared for market"

the first usage is from the 16th century

a lumberhouse was an earlier term for a pawn shop coming from the name of the banking family lombards

the north american term is probably a synecdoche


regards david

You get a whole new list when it comes to boats. The timbers of a boat are frames and the skin is planks(those planks can be called strakes). Then you have knees, webs, beams, posts(stem and stearnposts), keel, keelson, mast foot, masts, yards, bits and the list goes on.
Regards
John

Here at 53N, timber is what comes at you on a 1-lane logging road, 100kph, "loaded going out." 10' wide, 14' high and 40-60' long. aka logs. You follow "empty going in" and if that truck pulls into a "wide-out", you should do the same to see another sunrise.
"Lumber" usually infers dressed, dimension wood, what I buy in the store known as a lumber yard.
Could be whole, glue-lam, finger-joint, you have to ask.
"Wood" is something from a tree. No more, no less.
Nobody uses "ply" or "telly." Ply. . . . . what?
"Blocks" are shake blocks, usually western red cedar. I buy 24" x 12" x 9" x 40lbs/18kg for $5 each at a cedar mill.

Local terminology suits everybody, depends where you are.

In the 4 years that I lived in OZ, we kept a home-made dictionary of equivalent words. 400 by the time I sailed away.

Reminds me of a German guy I worked with for a few years. His English was so good you'd forget it was a second language for him and forget he'd never come across some Aussie sayings like "fair dink' ".

That's interesting RV, your take on Lumber is broader than what I thought it would be, thanks. And mentioning Lumber Yard, here I think we call them Sawmills, kind of. Actually I don't know. The thing is, anywhere I go the traditional sawmills have closed and the only convenient option are hardware/building supply stores or the super DIY hardware stores. Specialized timber suppliers I think are referred to as.... Actually I don't know that either. When I've researched a couple years back to find Mahogany, Oregon and a few others, I think I just googled Timber Suppliers.

Here again, you might find "lumber" at a sawmill. They saw wood.
I buy shake blocks from a shake mill as all they ever do is cut wood to length, everything else is split.
If sawmill rough is OK for the application or you need 50 fenceposts,
each 4m x 15cm x 15cm. Could be hot out of the saw house, maybe stickered and air-dried.
Otherwise, we expect "lumber" to be dressed and dried. The business will have a selection of 100+ products,
set out in increments of 24"/60cm.

Oh yeah, don't forget "plank," as in 'walk the plank,' the inference being substantial
boards, say 50mm x 300mm x 10+m or more.

I have no trouble just so long as the terminology cleary identifies the material.

stick, stock

Stuff