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Cody Colston
05-18-2016, 7:06 PM
I realize that different folks have different names for things and it's certainly true for those of us who work with wood. I'm struck by the term "slab" as it's been used here in a couple of thread titles.

To me, as someone who saws lumber from logs (I don't call myself a sawyer yet), a slab is the outermost part of the log, one side rounded and usually with the bark still on, that is normally discarded to be burned, chipped or cut into firewood. I did recently see a post on another forum where ERC slabs were being edged for vertical fence boards. As a teenager growing up on a farm I used to get "slabs" from a local sawmill and use them for corral boards. They were Pine and didn't last long but they were free.

Thicker stock is a plank to me but I see it commonly referred to as a slab, especially in 12/4 or 16/4 thicknesses. I generally call 4/4 and thinner a board and anything thicker a plank.

Stock of any thickness that has two natural edges, I call a flitch. Often it is stacked in the same orientation it was in while still in log form...only with stickers between the layers. Sometimes the stack will include the slab cuts, too, so that it looks like an expanded log when viewed from the end.

Everybody confused now? :D I am just musing about the terminology so I hope no one is offended if they use different terms.

Bradley Gray
05-18-2016, 8:23 PM
I too have burned many a "slab" from local mills. In the tobacco days farmers would burn their seed bed by piling up slabs.

I like "flitch" for tree wide cuts.

Another country sawmill term - "tie siding" - inch boards created while "boxing the heart"to make railroad ties.

Tom Hogard
05-18-2016, 10:13 PM
Cody,

Your definitions are the same ones I use. Slabs are scrap; boards, planks, posts, beams, go on the stack and get tallied. Live edge means one straight edge and one natural edge, a flitch has two natural edges. But several times a day I talk to someone who may not have the same vocabulary, as long as we agree on what they want from their log - its OK with me. I have had clients who didn't know what I meant when I asked if they wanted to maximize the figure in a log. They thought 'figure' meant the board feet in a log.

Phillip Mitchell
05-18-2016, 10:16 PM
Most people (who don't saw wood) call them slabs. I also call a live edge board a flitch or just live edge....but I gotta say that "slab" does sound better in sexy marketing speech.

Pat Barry
05-29-2016, 8:28 AM
My unofficial terminology -- I call a slab the full width slice from a log. A quartered cut doesn't quite fit my image of a slab but I would still use that term. A slab that is ripped to a rough size is a plank. A board is a generic term for a plank that is being worked to a finished state. A stick is a narrow board. A flitch is a stack of veneer slices (in sequential order). The first cut of the log is ??- I never would have called it a slab. There must be another term for it.