Are Scaffold Boards Getting Thicker ?

[niall Y]

Is it just the boards I am using at the moment -but, are all scaffolding boards thicker now? The ones at present are 38/39 mm, the previous ones 34 ish.

 

[niall Y]

Ah! ........ the plot thickens. It appears that the old specification BS 2482 1981 was superseded
by BS2482 2009. The thickness in the new specification is indeed 38mm as measured but try as I might I cannot find BS2482 1981 published anywhere, except with a firm called Scribd who you have to sign up with. It appears that we cannot be trusted with knowing the old standard in case it should somehow badly influence our understanding of the new one. Curiouser and curiouser.

 

[TRITON]

Given some of the labourers I've worked with, I dont think those scaffold boards are alone it the universe.

 

[ChaiLatte]

...except with a firm called Scribd who you have to sign up with.

Put 'scribd downloader' into a nearby Google and it will find something useful. Paste the scribd URL into the downloader page, wait a minute and the document will download.

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Table 2 of the 1981 edition says 38mm +/- 2mm
Table 3 of the 2009 edition says the same thing.
A reference to the 1970 edition also uses a nominal figure of 38mm.
https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/abs/10.1680/iwcgas.00902.bm02

 

[niall Y]

Put 'scribd downloader' into a nearby Google and it will find something useful. Paste the scribd URL into the downloader page, wait a minute and the document will download.

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Table 2 of the 1981 edition says 38mm +/- 2mm
Table 3 of the 2009 edition says the same thing.
A reference to the 1970 edition also uses a nominal figure of 38mm.
https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/abs/10.1680/iwcgas.00902.bm02

Thanks that's Interesting, so the old boards shouldn't be smaller, apart from the allowable discrepancy of +/- 2mm. In which case they should measure a minimum of 36mm. Could be explained by two further millimetres of weathering and wear, perhaps?

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Thanks that's Interesting, so the old boards shouldn't be smaller, apart from the allowable discrepancy of +/- 2mm. In which case they should measure a minimum of 36mm. Could be explained by two further millimetres of weathering and wear, perhaps?

Possibly simply shrinkage. Scaffold boards are normally strength graded wet, which means they contain a moisture content of 24% or more. In service, even outdoors they'll, at times, lose moisture and shrink. Quite how much they'll shrink is perhaps debatable, but it just might account for a millimetre or two of reduced thickness from when they were made. Slainte.

PS. Edited the above where I'd said 'graded' in my original post and added the word 'strength' to clarify the type of grading, i.e., strength grading as opposed to appearance grading.