Seemingly trivial things that annoy you

pinno

I built a conservatory in Douglas Fir. It's a lovely wood to work with. 13 years on and still going strong. They are taking it all out in NZ 'cos it's non native.

rjsterry

I'd always understood that it was too warm to grow decent softwood in this country - fast growth -> low density. I see a lot of Baltic deal coming out of older properties - considering it is general carcassing, it's so much better quality in terms of grain and density.

pinno

rjsterry wrote:

I'd always understood that it was too warm to grow decent softwood in this country - fast growth -> low density. I see a lot of Baltic deal coming out of older properties - considering it is general carcassing, it's so much better quality in terms of grain and density.

Most of the timber for the house I am renovating is covered in knots. I have to sift through yards of it to get half decent stuff. Even the dressed wood is poor and often warped. I think the forced drying process leaves a lot to be desired (as well as being over priced).

FishFish

Pinno wrote:

Douglas fir
Redwood
Sitca Spruce
Sequoia
Scots Pine
Norwegian Blue
Cypress
Juniper (?)
Leylandii
Bonsai

Add to that list HM.

Nice list of pines but juniper is a planet. Next to Uranus I think.

FishFish

Pinno wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

I'd always understood that it was too warm to grow decent softwood in this country - fast growth -> low density. I see a lot of Baltic deal coming out of older properties - considering it is general carcassing, it's so much better quality in terms of grain and density.

Most of the timber for the house I am renovating is covered in knots. I have to sift through yards of it to get half decent stuff. Even the dressed wood is poor and often warped. I think the forced drying process leaves a lot to be desired (as well as being over priced).

Can't you untie the knots?

team47b

Wood will always find an equilibrium with its surroundings i.e. Moisture in or out, but if it is artificially dried too fast the outer surface shrinks and puts the center of the wood under compression, once the outer is low on the moisture front it will set and resist shrinkage but the core is more moist and will shrink as it dries but the shrinkage is resisted by the set outer, this stress will cause the warp.

Bendy timber is great if you can get the bits that match the bendy walls of your house pinno

pinno

team47b wrote:

Wood will always find an equilibrium with its surroundings i.e. Moisture in or out, but if it is artificially dried too fast the outer surface shrinks and puts the center of the wood under compression, once the outer is low on the moisture front it will set and resist shrinkage but the core is more moist and will shrink as it dries but the shrinkage is resisted by the set outer, this stress will cause the warp.

Bendy timber is great if you can get the bits that match the bendy walls of your house pinno

There's also 80mm Bullet screws that straighten the bloody wood out, if you use enough of them and in the right places.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bullet-80mm-Wo ... B009S7TDXQ

Those ^ things are the dog's danglies BTW,

rjsterry

The wood always wins in the end. Chop the warped stuff up for noggins and use the straight bits for studs.

pinno

I used 16mm dowling for studs.

3" x 2" CLS for the framing. It's fine. I like the CLS - seems to be more stable and straighter than other options.

viewtopic.php?f=30005&t=13064868&hilit=PPP#p19877843

rjsterry

Pinno wrote:

I used 16mm dowling for studs.

3" x 2" CLS for the framing. It's fine. I like the CLS - seems to be more stable and straighter than other options.

viewtopic.php?f=30005&t=13064868&hilit=PPP#p19877843

Think we have different definitions if studs. I mean the vertical bits bits of wall framing set about 18" apart, with a sole plate across the bottom, a head plate at the top and short noggins between the studs. It'd be a very funny wall built out of 16mm dowel :? Are you doing pegged joints?

Any further off topic and this'll be ChippyRadar

pinno

Chippy radar, good one.

Not studded walls. I had a squeeze. Without loosing door aperture, I had to use 70mm x 12.5mm 'strapping' along a very unstraight, undulating (vertically) wall and the way I did it was to put 16mm dowling in the wall and use that to mount the strapping.
Took hours (with a large box of wedges and a long spirit level) but the end result was good. Now covered in plaster board and it's straight.

(That's the short version).

rjsterry

Popped over to have a look. V impressed (and not a little envious).

Pross

Having one of the most common cars on the roads but finding the tyres are not very common resulting in getting sent around the houses when you have a puncture. Even worse when the tyres are just worn and you have to go with the lease company's chosen brand.

secretsam

People with school age kids* who bring them on packed commuter trains at peak time, and moan about the lack seats.

* For the record: I have school age kids

FishFish

* For the school age kids: I have records.

mfin

Old over 60s people who get angry at stuff.

Chill out! You'll be dead soon!

Pross

mfin wrote:

Old over 60s people who get angry at stuff.

Chill out! You'll be dead soon!

Excellent, I can keep getting angry for another 15 years

Matthewfalle

Other people's brats messing about at the dinner table.

dinyull

Noticing annoying traits....

I've noticed one of my colleagues says "sort of" loads whilst on the phone. Now I've noticed it, I can't un-notice. She's been on the phone for about 5 mins now and she's said "sort of" approx 20 times..........make that 21.

cowsham

People that eat crisps like the cookie monster !

crispybug2

People who eat whilst walking down the street, seriously can you not sit down to eat your food for a mere five minutes like a civilised member of the human race???

veronese68

People that reply to all on every email when the only person that needs to know is the sender of the original email.

dinyull

Celebs posting stupid shoot revealing that their pregnant or the sex of the baby.

Hey everybody, look at me!!!

dinyull

And, although I don't do Facebook I know plenty of ordinary folk that do that kind of shoot too.

pinno

Dinyull wrote:

Noticing annoying traits....

I've noticed one of my colleagues says "sort of" loads whilst on the phone. Now I've noticed it, I can't un-notice. She's been on the phone for about 5 mins now and she's said "sort of" approx 20 times..........make that 21.

Which sort of annoys you, sort of.

Pross

Veronese68 wrote:

People that reply to all on every email when the only person that needs to know is the sender of the original email.

Yep, especially when their reply his some 'hilarious' comment. Also, people who request a read receipt. I've never sent a read receipt even if the email is important, we had a admin assistant in my last company who would have it every email such as 'there's no toilet paper in the women's toilet'.

cowsham

Having to wait for a car to arrive at the traffic lights cos they don't detect your bicycle.

haydenm

Pinno wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

I'd always understood that it was too warm to grow decent softwood in this country - fast growth -> low density. I see a lot of Baltic deal coming out of older properties - considering it is general carcassing, it's so much better quality in terms of grain and density.

Most of the timber for the house I am renovating is covered in knots. I have to sift through yards of it to get half decent stuff. Even the dressed wood is poor and often warped. I think the forced drying process leaves a lot to be desired (as well as being over priced).

We can and do grow C24 (construction/load bearing grade timber) in the UK but in general we produce C16 graded which is suitable for carcassing and the like. By definition though C16 contains 20% higher grade timber (And 20% lower) and the grading system is outdated, the majority of C16 timber is fine for building. That is before the fact that even with the traditional grading, average C16 is physically strong enough for building but it's not specced because it's easier not to.

I know at least one of the major mills can saw with the grain so the wood straightens as it's dried, their main problem is constantly being behind the curve so they end up buying poor quality standing wood for high prices to keep the mills running, then sticking through stuff which would usually come back to us as rejects. Thankfully they all have questionable government support of buying cheap wood on long term contracts from the FC. I'm sure the saw millers would blame the warping you are seeing on poor storage from the timber merchants and we are seeing a shift towards direct sales from some companies.

^That is all in relation to the ~60% of each crop which has the diameter and straightness to be sold as 'green log', the rest goes to chip or CHP plants and things like B&Q fence panels.

As the UK timber supply is only ~20% home grown (depending on the strength of imports) it's not the biggest issue for the industry at the moment. We can campaign and moan all we like the only thing that will make meaningful differences to the home grown market share is drastic changes to exchange rates and tariffs. It's so far down the line from the forest owner it's not really my remit at all. I would suggest buying from someone like James Jones (if their output quality is as good as their input quality) but their sawn wood will change hands 20 times before it reaches you anyway...



Sorry... things that annoy me, people who tell stories by saying 'he was like *blah blah*, then I was like *blah blah blah*'. Idiots.

keef66

Veronese68 wrote:

People that reply to all on every email when the only person that needs to know is the sender of the original email.

We had a belter a couple of months ago. Somebody decided to email the entire company telling them about exciting new developments in CRM (I think; I just deleted it). We are a global company employing tens of thousands. This would be of interest to maybe 0.01% of the workforce. The genius who originated the email sent it to two massive mailing groups, but at least 25% of the dimwits who responded, usually saying "I don't know who you are but can you please stop sending me this crap" (I'm paraphrasing a bit) were using Reply to all, not realising they were spamming thousands of people. So all our inboxes were filling up with a massive wave of emails from around the globe. You could tell when the working day was starting in each country in turn. I had to switch my iPhone off to get any sleep. And why are Americans sending emails at 4AM local time FFS???
Then there was a second tsunami of emails from a further cohort of dimwits, this time asking the first lot to stop replying to all, but they in turn were using reply to all. I think the mail server crashed on day 3.

The most charitable take home message from that little farce is that they seem to have identified a training need...

First.Aspect

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