For your convenience, we have assembled a myriad of industry terms and definitions.

Air Dried – Lumber that has been dried by exposure to air, usually in a yard, without artificial heat.

Board Foot – the volume of a board 1’ long, 1’ wide, and 1" thick or the equivalent. (144 cubic inches of wood)

Boxcar – a closed roofed freight car.

Burl – a swirl or twist in grain of the wood, which usually occurs near a knot, but is not a knot.

Check – A lengthwise separation of the wood that usually extends across the rings of annual growth and commonly results from stresses set up in wood during seasoning.

Cup – A distortion of a board in which there is a deviation flatwise from a straight line across the width of a board.

Figure – The pattern produced in a wood surface by annual growth rings, rays, knots, deviation from regular grain, such as interlocked and wavy, and irregular coloration.

Flatbed – Semi truck with a trailer that has no sides or roof.

Grain - The direction, size, arrangement, appearance, or quality of the fibers in sawn wood. Straight grain is used to describe lumber where the fibers and other longitudinal elements run parallel to the axis of the piece.

Green – Freshly sawn lumber, or lumber that has received no intential drying; unseasoned.

Gross Tally – Otherwise known as a green tally. The board footage of lumber figured when the board is unseasoned.

Gum Pocket - An excessive local accumulation of resin or gum in the wood.

Hardwood – Any close grained wood from deciduous trees. The term has no reference to the actual hardness of the wood.

Heartwood – The wood extending from the pith to the sapwood, the cells of which no longer participate in the life processes of the tree. Heartwood is generally darker than sapwood, but the two are not always clearly differentiated.

Kiln Dried – Lumber that has been dried in a kiln with the use of artificial heat; seasoned.

Linear foot – system of measuring length

L.T.L. (Less Than Load) – An LTL shipment is when there is less than a truck load of product to be shipped at one time.

Mineral Streak – An olive to greenish-black or brown discoloration of undetermined cause in hardwoods.

Moisture Content (M.C.) – The weight of water contained in wood expressed as a percentage of the weight of the oven dry wood. Kiln Dried standard M.C. is 6-8%.

Net Tally – Otherwise known as a dried tally. The board footage of lumber figured when the board is seasoned to a 6-8% M.C.

Pin Knot – A knot which does not exceed 1/8" in average diameter.

Pith – The small soft core occurring in the structural center of the log.

Plain-Sawn – Plain-sawn hardwood boards are produced by cutting tangentially to a tree’s growth rings, creating the familiar "flame-shaped" or "cathedral" pattern. This method also produces the most lumber from each log, making plain-sawn lumber a cost effective design choice.

Profile – the shape of the wood, as seen from a side view.

Quarter-sawn – Quarter-sawing means cutting a log radially (90-degree angle) to the growth rings to produce a "vertical" and uniform pattern grain. This method yields fewer and narrower boards per log than plain sawing, boosting their cost significantly. Quarter-sawn boards are popular for decorative applications.

Rift-sawn – Rift-sawing at a 30-degree or greater angle to the growth rings produces narrow boards with accentuated vertical or "straight" grain patterns. Rift-sawn boards are often favored for fine furniture or other applications where matching grain is important. This type of lumber is available in limited quantities and species.

Sapwood – The living wood of pale color near the outside of the log.
Shrinkage- The contraction of wood fibers caused by drying below the fiber saturation point (usually around 25-27% M.C.). Values are expressed as a percentage of the dimension of the wood when green.

Softwood – any soft, light-textured wood of a coniferous tree.

Species – a commercial name assigned to a specie of trees.

Split – A lengthwise separation of the wood, due to the tearing apart of wood cells.

Stain – In hardwoods the word "stain" is used to describe the initial evidences of decay.

Wane – Bark or lack of wood.

Warp – Warp is any variation from a true or plane surface. Warp includes bow, crook, cup and twist, or any combination thereof.