We get it, you hate imperial measurements. It also has absolutely zero to do with this issue, because as I mentioned before, if it were in centimeters or millimeters or fagmeters, it still wouldn't be the stated size because of the practice of giving the measurement before the final product is produced. That is the issue at hand, not the units we use.
If I ever have any questions related to Lumber, I shall come to you sir.Even rough cut 2x4's are not 2"x4". It's not a piece of plastic or milled metal.
Measure twice, cut once.
It's the same people who complain that the 2x4 has sweep in it is because they cut trees too soon instead of "old growth" (LOL in itself) trees.
No, the reason you see a lot of 2x4's now with mass amounts of sweep in them they are cut on a sash gang saw, basically like a band saw blade attached to a frame where a bunch are side by side. The operator can follow the sweep of the tree. It doesn't matter if the tree leans over from 0 at the bottom to 45 midway up you can still cut a series of 2x4's out of it by following the sweep.
It's a natural product.
He is also stupid because the Germans (and the rest of the EU) do the same thing with their boards. They are labelled 50mm x 100mm but they are really like 40 x 90 most of the time.
I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere, but from what I read while Googling, it wasn't just that the lumber wasn't an advertised dimension, the lumber didn't even meet the minimum NIST requirements. So with a 2x4, they may have been selling 2x4s that were actually less than the NIST standard of 1.5" x 3.5". So this really isn't a story about the DA being ignorant that a 2x4 isn't literally 2"x4", it's that Lowes was buying and selling some lumber without making sure that it met NIST measurement standards and they got caught.
Do you really think I'd do that?
Or you can read through this, like page 3 or so:
