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Standard Sizes of Dimension Stock m 



Those who dream dreams and see visions look forward to r- time 

 when sizes of half-manufactured stock for wood commodities shall 

 be reduced to a comparatively small number of standards. That is, 

 all furniture makers are to use standard lengths, breadths, and thick- 

 nesses; chair makers to have certain fixed dimensions; cabinet makers 

 the same, and so on down the line through all the wood- using in- 

 dustries that draw their supplies from the sawmUl, lumber yard, and 

 planing mill. 



That state of affairs may be brought about when universal peace 

 is established throughout the world and war has been abolished by 

 all nations, including Mexico; but it is so far in the future now that 

 something more practical and possible ought to be considered. 



There is a practical side to the question, but it does not go to the 

 extent of supposing that all furniture manufacturers, chair makers, 

 vehicle people, cabinet shops, and so forth, will agree to confine 

 their respective commodities to a few similar sizes and patterns. 

 The people who make these things are not yet ready to surrender theii- 

 individuality, abandon originality, and settle down to make a few 

 common articles exactly like all their competitors are making them, 

 and for the sole sake of being able to buy their dimension stock in 

 the open market instead of making it themselves in the pai-ticular 

 kinds and styles that they want. 



It is not impossible, however, that some method less wasteful and 

 costly than the jiresent can be worked out to cover part of the manu- 

 facturing field. Take for instance the maker of filing cabinets. He 

 uses a large number of different sized pieces of wood. He buys 

 the lumber and cuts out the stock in his own factory. Such a factory 

 uses from eighty to one hundred different sizes. Although he buys 

 lumber as nearly suited as possible to his needs, and cuts with intelli- 

 gence and care, there is much waste that must be thrown away. 

 Unless the lumber is of quite a good grade, there are many knots, 

 shakes, splits, and rotten pieces that are useless. He has paid freight 

 on what he throws away as well as on what he can use. 



It would be desirable, if practicable, to have this stock cut out at 

 the sawmill, and the dimensions alone shipped to the factory to be 

 made up into filing cabinets. It has been argued that material as 

 well as freight could thus be saved. 



This is only one industry. The same argument would apply to 

 most of the wood-using industries that require large quantities of 

 small dimension stock. It has been asked why they cannot have 

 the sawmills cut out the stock for them, in exact sizes, thus giving 

 each manufacturer just what he needs, no more, no less. No factory 

 would be paying freight on waste, and would not need to throw 

 away knots, shakes, and splits which had been paid for at so much 

 a thousand feet. 



DiflSculties are met when an attempt is made to put this theory ir\to 

 practice. It is a common saying that it works better on paper 

 than at the sawmill. There is probably not a manufacturer in the 

 industries mentioned who has not done a good deal of thinking along 

 that very line, and many have not stopped with thinking but have 

 worked on the practical end of the proposition. They would like 

 to buy their stock that way, if they could. That they have not been 

 doing so is proof that something is in the way. 



The sawmill man has not been able to get out the dimension stock, 

 because there are too many sizes and kinds. He might take orders 

 from a single factory, and work out its cutting bills, and if that 

 factory took the mill's whole output, the scheme would work that 

 far. But if the mill should cut beyond its specific orders, where 

 would it sell the surplus? The pieces are all of the special kind 

 used by one factory, and no other would want them. 



There in a nutshell lies the trouble. Hundreds, even thousands, 

 of sizes and kinds of stock are in use. If a mill should cut certain 

 sizes only, it would have to know where to sell them. If it tries to 

 keep all sizes in stock, it -will find many a lot left on its hands, 

 because the particular lots are not wanted by any purchaser in the 

 mill's district. 



It resolves itself simply to this: The business of cuttinij and 



—24— 



selling miscellaneous dimension stock is so complicated that no miU is 

 willing to undertake it. How much more complicated would it become 

 if hundreds of scattered sawmills should undertake to cut such stock 

 and trust to the general market to take it? 



It does not pay a sawmill to put in the special machinery required 

 for cutting such stock, unless it can be done on a fairly large scale. 

 The work that might be furnished by orders from one, two, or three 

 factories woidd seldom be sufiicient to justify a mill in putting in 

 and operating the extra plant, even if long-period orders could be 

 assured. 



Many persons have tried to devise some way to accomplish the 

 desired end; to formulate a plan by which a large part of the dimen- 

 sio:i cutting could be done at sawmills instead of at the factories 

 where the completed commodities are turned out. No one has yet 

 succeeded, but the consensus of opinion is — at least, it is the opinion 

 of a number of persons who have investigated the matter — that if the 

 problem ever reaches solution it wiU be by the aid of some sort of 

 middleman or association that will act as a go-between. 



According to that plan, the middleman would act as a clearing 

 house, so to speak; on the one hand acquaintin;; himself with the 

 needs of the factories which use dimension stock, on the other ar- 

 ranging with mills to cut it. Under the plan, he would get in touch 

 with the factories, find out all the sizes and kinds of stock needed, 

 and the amount of each size and kind; then with this information, 

 arrange with the sawmills to produce the stock. The details would 

 be multitudinous, of course, but the general outline of the plan is 

 simple. It might not work out in practice, but the theory appears to 

 l)resent no insurmountable obstacles. Something of the sort is already 

 in fairly successful operation by the vehicle manufacturers and the 

 mills that cut the stock. However, the vehicle field is smaller, the 

 sizes of stock are less numerous, and few kinds of wood are used. A 

 plan embracing furniture of all kinds, cabinets, tools and implements, 

 and miscellaneous commodities, would call for hundreds, probably 

 thousands, of sizes of stock, and numerous kinds of wood and grades 

 of lumber, and if such a plan should be tried and be found imprac- 

 ticable, the failure would probably be due to the \ast array of details 

 and to the large number of jieople concerned, rather than to any 

 defect in the plan itself. 



Perhaps no attempt should be made, at least not at first, to have a 

 single dimension-stock clearing house for the whole country. The 

 perfection of an arrangement to include so much territory would 

 doubtless be a good while in the future, even after success on a small 

 scale had been found practicable. The country is divided naturally 

 into fairly-well defined industrial districts, each of which might be 

 organized as a scpar.ite unit. A general association would properly 

 be a matter for subsequent consideration, should the occasion arise. 



.^^ssuming that such a scheme could be successfully put into practice, 

 it ought to accomplish a great deal in the way of saving waste, saving 

 freight, and saving in numerous other ways. It would help to 

 standardize where that result is desirable, and would not discourage 

 or suppress individuality or originality. 



Less waste in cutting, than under the present method of each 

 manufacturer cutting out his own stock, would be bound to result. 

 The factory which uses only a few^ sizes, and those sizes rather large, 

 must throw away many a piece that would be available for smaller 

 sizes. The mill that might have a thousand sizes on its cutting bills, 

 from large to very small, can work down to the smallest limit, even 

 to dowels and clothes pins, in cutting, and what would go to ultimate 

 waste would bo sawdust and chips. Many a factory which cuts for 

 itself, wheels out cartloads of blocks which some other factory could 

 use, if it had them. The factory which has this waste does not 

 willingly throw it away, but would be glad to use it or sell it, if it 

 could. To hunt a buyer for it, and ship to that buyer would cost 

 more than it would come to. But if these blocks were at tho mill 

 which has customers for all sizes, they would go through the machines, 

 come out as small dimension stock, and go to the customers who arc 

 in the market for that kind. 



