Yes, that shit is warped and has knots in it. Yes, if you want the shit that doesn’t have warping and knots, you do indeed have to pay more money.
This is how all commodities, products, and services have worked, since the first time someone had the idea of trading one resource for another resource.
Please try to wrap your head around the concept. Better things cost more. This should NOT be blowing anyone’s fucking mind.
Changing the fine print about lumber grades could cause changes in the middle grades of lumber. That’s absolutely a thing.
You could easily notice a change in what is considered almost-the-most-premium versus middle-of-the-road lumber.
But the top and the bottom aren’t going to change. They CAN’T change. It’s physically and logically impossible for them to change. The highest price will always get you the actual straight, consistent, knot-free pieces. The lowest grade will always be filled with warped wood and knots.
I’m simply not wrong about this. Good money = good shit. Cheap prices = worst quality. These concepts are not up for debate. They are simply facts.
As a counterpoint I introduce monster cables.
Ridiculously expensive with no appreciable gain in quality.
Prices are subjective and you could easily sell someone lesser quality for a higher price.
People scam people all the time.
So no, good money does not equal quality.
Your concepts are up for debate.
I’ll concede that the principle isn’t 100 percent infallible. And certainly, people are always trying to scam buyers into thinking they’re getting a premium product, when they’re really not. But we’re really not even talking about the top end of the lumber situation, are we?
We’re talking about old-timers fantasizing about some mythical time when the cheapest possible lumber was somehow not the worst lumber. That DEFINITELY never happened. There was never a time when people were randomly selling perfect boards at the cheap lumber price. There’s no incentive to do that. Maybe as, like, a loss-leader item, in some kind of specific promotional situation, maybe. But then you’d know that’s what was happening. Like, the store is trying to get you to come in for great wood, and hopefully you’ll buy a saw or a drill.
Again, that’s not what people are talking about, when they go on rants about hardware store wood. They’re either surprised-Pikachu mode because cheap lumber is shitty, or they think they can remember some time in the dinosaur era, when cheap lumber was generally good. Truly, for the last time, THAT WAS NEVER A THING.
Have you ever seen old lumber?
The quality was way better, the whole scale has fallen compared to back then.
The best stuff now has the potential to beat the common grade sure, but it is not likely.
So to them it is true, they have just seen higher quality.
I made a headboard out of some would I got out of old houses, super nice and tight grain pattern.
The width of one ring now could easily be as wide as 3 were in that wood, maybe 5.
This is so simple and so true from what I’ve heard. I don’t understand how op doesn’t get it
I believe you that cheap lumber has always been bad.
I live in BC where forestry is a big part of the economy. As i understands it, there is a big difference in log quality between old growth fiber and second growth fiber. It’s because old growth trees grew in forests and second growth trees grew in fields (initially).
Trees grow towards light. Forests are shady so trees grow slowly and pretty much straight up. Fields are bright so light is everywhere and trees grow quickly in every direction. Therefore old growth trees have fewer knots, and tighter, straighter grain where second growth has more knots, and fat rings with more twist.
Also because of improved distribution infrastructure the cost of shipping crappy wood to a market where people don’t know any better has gone down. Also if you live in an area with historically good wood supply, it’s also easier for the good stuff to be sold into other markets too.
Also, because everybody tried to build a new deck at the same time (during the pandemic) quality control may be more lax now because they know it will sell anyway.
Here is a quick visual comparison between old growth and second growth forests. The video more from an ecological perspective but it gives a good view of the difference between an old growth forest and a replanted forest.
There are a lot of differences between old growth and new growth wood that could at least partially account for your colleagues’ opinion.
Another thing that’s potentially changed is who they’re buying their wood from. Buying it from an orange hardware store vs from an actual building supplies store could make a big difference.
That’s unironically fascinating. I’ll have to re-read all of this in more detail, when I have time later.
This level of detail, of course, is the exact opposite of the people I was talking about in the meme, and in this discussion. You wrote like seven paragraphs of interesting, cogent, logical shit. The people I’m talking about? They just say shit like “BACK IN MY DAY, WE HAD REAL LUMBER AND IT WASN’T WARPED. I BLAME THE DIET SODAS AND THE HIP-HOP MUSIC.”
Because back in their day they did get real lumber that wasn’t warped.
The rest is just yelling at clouds.
That reminds me, I’m getting old enough I need to pencil in some time for that
High prices =/= good. Low prices =/= bad. High grade lumber will tend to be more expensive, but assuming that something is better because it’s more expensive is a great way to get conned.
Binary thinking isn’t worth arguing with because it’s simply too stupid to be
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