For more than 70 years, people have been using machines to assist in the grading of lumber. This article summarizes the machine grading methodologies for producing Machine Stress Rated Lumber (MSR) and Machine Evaluated Lumber (MEL) and highlights the similarities and differences between MSR and...

As a follow-up to our January 2021 All Things Wood article by Frank Woeste and Don Bender, “Hybrid Lumber” Grade Stamps Require Special Attention, we are pleased to report that additional information is now available for designers and code officials. The following article appears...

Many of the problems we hear about and actually see on jobsites, both offsite and site built, involve the poor quality of standard SPF #2. When I was the General Manager of a large lumber yard back in the 1980s, it wasn’t much better. I can still remember the yard men cutting the steel...

Lumber properties are influenced by species and growing region. Species with similar design properties are combined into species groups, as shown in Tables 4A, 4B, and 4F of the NDS Supplement[1]. For example, a common species group in the southeastern U.S. is Southern Pine (SP), which includes...

When flipping around in trading ranges in the $300s, planning for the coming year had some sort of definable “worst case scenario” contingency plan. I’m just curious. How do you plan for next year, staring down the barrel of all-time high lumber prices and short supply? That...

After 40 years in project management and product ownership for the financial service industry, dealing with everything from futures to equities to basis trading, I thought my brain couldn’t possibly manage another acronym. But, in a world that constantly changes, I too had to evolve...

In the day of a CM’s and framer’s life, lumber buying is considered the most enjoyable and easiest task to perform. Buying lumber is a huge ego booster. By your own admission, lumber is 40–50% of the cost of producing the finished product. I find it simply stunning how very...

We have six weeks left in the 2019 season with three major holidays inside that window. At a minimum, we will lose one week of jobsite productivity. Buyers are measuring needs against inventory on the ground as well as bought ahead. Many states have year-end inventory taxes and historically...

Eurowood and SYP…the Future! It’s times like the last couple of weeks in SPF-W, when buyers get taken by surprise, and they have one question for sellers. “How you gonna help me?” Two weeks ago, I warned that SPF mills were about to spring surprise, imminent...

In both the lumber and stock markets, there are more disruptions coming in 2019. The immediate influences of government shutdown, mass exodus from stocks, on-going trade war, volatile oil market, fight to suppress interest rates, President Trump’s legal issues, and global economic and...