[Strawbale] plywood vs. osb for gussets

[Chris Green]

Ken Simonelis wrote:
>         Chris, although I'm not a lumber grader in any sense of the word, I've handled enough sticks to feel  confident enough in my ability to sort out the keepers. ( I think I'm probably a bit pickier than your average grader as I bought about 50 pieces of 2x4 for a small project ( mill is buried in snow and my own stock of 2x4's is low ), Said #2 on the stud but I'd a probably  set 25 % of them aside if I was sorting.) 
>         Like most farmers here in North East Alta. I've spent some winters working in sawmills, the bush and the oil patch and seen a few lumber graders in action. What a job, I go cross eyeed after 20 minutes and they just keep at it 12 hours a day , day after day. I pretty sure they weren't hitting 98% accuracy so my hats off to you for that talent.
>   

Modern lumber graders in the newer mills ave to grade anywhere from 100  
thousand board feet to 1 million board feet/ shift. A lot of them now 
use stress-grading machines because workers can't keep up the pace. I 
had the luxury of grading between 40 and 50 thousand board feet/ shift. 
And I tended to high-grade the questionable stuff so the trim saw guy 
could cut off bad parts. (Got heck for that from Mr. Olson, my boss, 
after a month or so because our overall production dropped a bit..)
>  Most cants square up to 18" or better and no knots at all  untill the top log or so. As you can imagine,even a rank  amature like me can do quite well 'grading '.
>   
Wow. I didn't know you folks had trees that big in Northern Alberta. 
I've only seen the smaller ones from the Peace River country.
 I haven't seen anything larger than 12x12 in years. I'd say 'go with 
your instincts' It sounds like you've got way more time in lumbering 
than I ended up with.
 
A former nephew-in-law of mine did some timber frame building for one of 
my nieces and in the process of getting the timbers ready for use, he 
rented a big floor sander and power sanded the 12x12's with it, sanding 
two at a time. It sure speeds things up. (when sanding is necessary... )

If you ever get over to the South Peace region, the oldest strawbale 
building we know about in Canada is the Bad Heart Church, on the Bad 
Heart River, which is somewhere near Grande Prairie/ Sexsmith. Built in 
1954, from 400 bales of rye straw, and at a cost of $600, it is now used 
as a community center.
The story behind it and  instructions to get to it are included in the 
tourism guide in this 43 page pdf file:

http://www.northernvisitor.com/GPRTAguide05.pdf

Cheers,

Chris Green.
Savona, B.C.