September 10, 1917 



Hardwood Record — Veneer 6c Panel Section 



31 



The Measurement of Veneer 



How It Differs from the Measurement of Logs and Lumber 



When logs have been cut into veneer, the thin sheets 

 are measured on the surface only. It is called superficial 

 measure and includes one side only. Thus a sheet three 

 feet wide and three feet long contains nine feet of veneer 

 without any regard to the thickness of the sheets. The 

 maximum thickness does not exceed five-sixteenths of an 

 inch in regular stock, and it may be almost anything 

 thinner than that. In rare cases, sheets have been cut to 

 the thinness of one-thousandth of an inch. A sheet of 

 that extreme thinness, three feet long and three feet wide, 

 would measure nine feet of veneer. 



Government reports of veneer output, published in 

 past years, have been somewhat confusing because the 

 measure is not based on the surface dimensions of the 

 sheets, but on log measurements. For example, the gov- 

 ernment report of the output in 1909 gave the total cut 

 for the country at 435,981,000 feet. It is plainly stated 

 in the report that this is log scale. TT»e logs were meas- 

 ured before they were converted into veneer, and the 

 figures show the quantity of logs. But when the total is 

 quoted, without the statement that it is log measurement, 

 it confuses the veneer manufacturer who is accustomed to 

 think of surface measure only. He knows that according 

 to surface measure the total of 435,981,000 feet is too 

 small. When the basis of measurement has been ex- 

 plained, the misunderstanding disappears. 



Lumber is measured on the basis of boards one inch 

 thick. That thinner than one inch is still considered to 

 be an inch thick when it is measured. Thin lumber is 

 really measured on the surface the same as veneer. TTiat 

 is where the two measurements, lumber and veneer, have 

 a common meeting place. 



If logs are measured, it is generally for the purpose of 

 ascertaining how many feet of inch boards they will cut. 

 Suppose the logs scale 100,000 feet. If they are then 

 sawed into lumber, it is presumed that they will yield 

 100,000 feet of inch boards; but if they are sent to the 

 veneer mill and cut into thin sheets, there is no way of 

 telling how many surface feet of veneer will be produced, 

 unless it is known how thick the sheets will be. TTiat 

 cannot be taken for granted as in lumber; for while all 

 lumber measurements are made on the basis of one inch 

 thickness, veneer has no standard thickness accepted by 

 common consent for measurement purposes. 



It is not known how many feet of veneer, surface meas- 

 ure, are made annually in the United States. Something 

 more than 500,000,000 feet of logs go to veneer mills 

 annually to be sliced, sawed, or cut by the rotary process; 

 but no statistics seem to have been collected to show how 

 many surface feet are produced. To say that half a 

 billion feet of logs are converted into veneer gives no 



All Three of U* Will Be Benefited if 



adequate idea of the total according to veneer measure- 

 ment. It would probably be entirely within reason to 

 say that the country's cut per year, veneer measure, is 

 not less than 5,000,000,000 feet and it may be much 

 more than that, because if the sheets averaged one-tenth 

 of an inch thick, the above total would be about right, 

 but the average thickness may be less than one-tenth of 

 an inch. 



A log which will make 500 feet of inch lumber, 

 should make at least 4,500 feet of one-tenth inch veneer, 

 sliced or rotary. If rotary cut, the core causes consider- 

 able waste, because the knife will not operate all the way 

 to the center of the log; but this will be made good, at 

 least in a large log, by the absence of sawdust in the 

 veneer operation. Theoretically, a log that will saw 500 

 feet of inch lumber, ought to make 5,000 feet of veneer, 

 one-tenth of an inch thick. It may fall short or run above 

 that figure in practice. Perhaps large veneer mills have 

 figures on that subject; but there seem to have been few 

 figures published to show^ a comparison betvsreen log 

 measurement and the actual production of veneers of 

 various thicknesses, and cut by the different methods. 



Made in Si. Louis by 



StLouis Basket & Box Co. 



WE MANUFACTURE 



a complete line of 

 Built-up Stock in most 

 any size or thickness, 

 including Walnut, Ma- 

 hogany, Quartered 

 and Plain Oak, Ash. 

 Gum, Plain or Figured 

 Birch, Yellow Pine, 

 S y c a n> ore, Cotton- 

 \vood, etc. 



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