New Grade-Use Guide Aid to Lumber Trade

Washington, D. C., Dec. 28.-Complying with an insistent demand, within and without the industry, for an authoritative manual covering the use of wood in building constru,ction, the National Lurnber Manufacturers Associa_ tion has just published the long-awaited ,,Lumber GradeUse Guide." ft is the result of ten years' study and research by the technical staff, and is a cooperative undertaking, of the regional manufacturers' associations and the National.

Although primarily designed to guide the selection of lumber needed in a house or a barn, a dock or a warehouse, a bridge or a derrick, or, for that matter, in any structure of any kind, the Guide will prove to be an invaluable selling aid; it will, in fact, enable retail lumbermen, salaried or commissioned lumber salesmen, wholesale dealers or other merchandisers actually to sell lumber rather than merely to take orders, for it arms the industrv with the technical information necessary to recommend a product of Standard quality for a specific purpose.

Reference to the Guide will show the species and grades recommended, with standard sizes, for framing, joists, sub_ flooring, flooring, sheathing, interior trim, exterior wall covering, de,corative interior panelling and, in fact, all the many lumber items required for a building. Leading lum_ bermen have expressed the opinion that any salarled or commissioned salesman, any retailer or wholesaler who attempts to operate without the aid of the manual will ,com_ pete at a marked disadvantage.

The Guide makes no attempt to influence the choice of the kind of wood by the home-builder or usurp the place of the architect, engineer, or specification writer. Its value lies in the fact that it enables designers and users of lumber to express their own judgment and preferences in language which is readily understood by the woodworking and lum_ ber trade. The grades named are standard throughout the lumber industry, and an adequate assortment from which to ,choose is regularly carried in stock. They were built up from basic American Lumber Standards originally promulgated by consumers, specifiers, and the industry in cooperation with the Bureau of Standards of the Department of Commerce.

Printed in ,convenient loose-leaf form, it is a compilation of data arranged in separate assemblies or pamphlets. Each of these deals exclusively with the species of woods from a particular region or division of the industry, with the information presented in a standardized order throughout the work. A description of the characteristics of the species in,cluded in each group is followed by the grade-use reconmendations, and, after these, a table of sizes and a brief description of the grades, which, in a number of ,cases, are illustrated. The Guide deals, in all, with 22 individ,ual kinds of softwoods, 33 hardwoods, and 26 difrercnt broad types of buildings and other structures.

Softwoods and hardwoods are grouped under separate heads, but the work is so indexed that the architect who wishes to select the proper grade and spe,cies for use in the construction of a fine residence, the home-owner about to