Why do timber merchants refer to their joinery grade timber as ‘unsorted’? Surely if they have selected the best timber for joinery purposes then they have ‘sorted’ out the good stuff? Or am I missing something here?
Unsorted Joinery Grade
- Thread starter JAW911
- Start date
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It's historical.
Unsorted is a contraction of "Unsorted Fifths or better", and is mixture of grades 1-5.
When the appearance grades were invented, it was still possible to source large quantities of clears and higher grades, so it made sense to sort them into individual grades.
Over time most of the really good old-growth stands (of trees) have been harvested, and we're now harvesting stands as soon as they reach commercial maturity, then replanting, meaning really high grades are hard to come by, so it's not economic to sort into individual grades, beyond removing 6ths and 7ths which have defects which would make them unsuitable for joinery work.
You can still buy "Clears" or "2nd's or better" if you really want from some larger suppliers, but expect to pay a substantial amount of money for the time of a skilled grader and labourers to sort through multiple packs of timber to select those boards for you.
In the 4 years I worked in Sawmilling we probably had only two or three orders for specified grades like that, all from firms doing ultra-high end restoration where money was no object to their ultimate client...
One such order for 2m³ of 250×50 clears took 18 hours to prepare by pulling apart dozens of packs from our most reliable suppliers, according to the production manager it had taken nearly six months to gather enough packs of known good material together to be worth starting to sort through.
Edit:
Unsorted is a contraction of "Unsorted Fifths or better", and is mixture of grades 1-5.
When the appearance grades were invented, it was still possible to source large quantities of clears and higher grades, so it made sense to sort them into individual grades.
Over time most of the really good old-growth stands (of trees) have been harvested, and we're now harvesting stands as soon as they reach commercial maturity, then replanting, meaning really high grades are hard to come by, so it's not economic to sort into individual grades, beyond removing 6ths and 7ths which have defects which would make them unsuitable for joinery work.
You can still buy "Clears" or "2nd's or better" if you really want from some larger suppliers, but expect to pay a substantial amount of money for the time of a skilled grader and labourers to sort through multiple packs of timber to select those boards for you.
In the 4 years I worked in Sawmilling we probably had only two or three orders for specified grades like that, all from firms doing ultra-high end restoration where money was no object to their ultimate client...
One such order for 2m³ of 250×50 clears took 18 hours to prepare by pulling apart dozens of packs from our most reliable suppliers, according to the production manager it had taken nearly six months to gather enough packs of known good material together to be worth starting to sort through.
Edit:
I should point out this was on a site with it's own quayside, three seperate sawmills, two timber treatment plants and something in the region of 56 acres of covered and external storage for timber...
I sincerely doubt many smaller timber merchants or even importers would be able to hold enough stock to make it viable to source that material.
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scholar
Established Member
The explanation I had years ago from my Dad (to exactly the same question) was that the process of “sorting” started with extracting the least good timber, so that when you were left with “unsorted”, that was after taking out the least good grades up to a point as @Jelly has described. With that explanation the nonsensical description makes some sense!
I think this is consistent with the explanation Jelly has given of the grading process (and he is an expert and I am not).
Cheers
I think this is consistent with the explanation Jelly has given of the grading process (and he is an expert and I am not).
Cheers
Jacob
New Luddism. Awake and resist!
Yes makes sense! It's only for sawn N. European or Russian redwood as far as I know. Sorted at the Swedish/Russian sawmill, not by the dealer here. Other imports have different grading systems
One thing to watch out for if you are buying "unsorted" is that they just take it from the top with no selection process. Otherwise it's become "sorted" and whatever remains will be lower grade. You can still object if it is clearly sub standard but by and large you are expected to take it as it comes. Sometimes it's brilliant and you get lovely knot free straight grained long pieces.
Jelly describes sorting the unsorted above. Whatever remains should then be down graded.
It meant you could safely order by grade over the phone and get exactly what you ordered - no faffing about all day in a timber yard - in fact if they let you choose it's not a good place to go as someone else may already have taken the better stuff.
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Very Much so, for the posters who are uninitiated into this system it's worth knowing that the Russian and Scandinavian grades are different. Unsorted was traditionally Clears, and Russian Grades 1-3 and Scandinavian Grades 1-4.
It's not uncommon to see Scandinavian 5ths in the specification of U/S material these days as it's entirely suitable for joinery and guaranteed to be free of dead knots, not as easy to work though so better used for production of mouldings and the like.
Russian 4ths are not as they can include dead knots, and are thus appreciably worse in quality than either the Russian 3rds or Scandinavian 5ths.
Indeed, I believe our standard terms for sawn or planed timber and mouldings in redwood were "Fifths or better" rather than "Unsorted" for exactly that reason, most of the material was straight from unsorted packs, but the company still didn't want to get burned over quality.
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I don't care because you always end up having to sort out the timber that is usable yourself, splits, too many knots or writhing around like a snake. Luckily one timber supplier I use is good and it is easy to sort good usable wood, all the really twisted and split stuff they sell to the house builders.
I've just taken delivery of some timber, the 2" x 2" is listed as fifths - it is perfectly average, a few live knots, no dead. The seven inch skirting surprised me, though - even a 4.8mtr length had only two small live knots in it. Dead flat and clean.
Timber Merchants in Cornwall | Wooden Fence Panels Cornwall for any of you down the pointy end.
Timber Merchants in Cornwall | Wooden Fence Panels Cornwall for any of you down the pointy end.
johnnyb
Established Member
the biggest problem is one in five are resinous one in ten are saturated with it. show it a machine and its an instant clog. I had one and it was twice as heavy as the next . no paint would stick until it was cleaned with white spirit.
Doug71
Established Member
I often buy unsorted Swedish 9x3s and yeah I reckon you are about right that 1 in five is full of resin.
I always imagine the resinous ones will be more durable, although probably won't last any longer if the paint doesn't stick!
johnnyb
Established Member
they are amazing for lighting the Woodburner though! tbh its a real pain much worse than the odd knot.
Jacob
New Luddism. Awake and resist!
Can't say I've ever had a problem with resin and I've used tons of the stuff.
It easily scrapes off saw blades or planer rollers if you do it when it's still warm as soon as you finish the job. Sometimes have to swab it off planer tables with white spirit
It easily scrapes off saw blades or planer rollers if you do it when it's still warm as soon as you finish the job. Sometimes have to swab it off planer tables with white spirit
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RobinBHM
Established Member
One thing to remember is that certain timber sections come from specific parts of the tree.
So typically 25 x 150 or 1" x 6" in old money comes from sideboards - pretty clean often few knots.
And 63 x 225 (2 1/2" x 9") is one of the boards adjacent to the centre of the tree.
A joinery shop would typically buy in 63 x 225 for making window section and cut 2 rips off the outside edges and chuck away the centre bit which almost always has splits.
So typically 25 x 150 or 1" x 6" in old money comes from sideboards - pretty clean often few knots.
And 63 x 225 (2 1/2" x 9") is one of the boards adjacent to the centre of the tree.
A joinery shop would typically buy in 63 x 225 for making window section and cut 2 rips off the outside edges and chuck away the centre bit which almost always has splits.
