Hi. I'm Ted Cook with ReallyCheapFloors.com. Today we're going to talk about our
Winchester cabin grade solid. Cabin grade is an interesting topic. Each company
that makes solid wood has a different definition of what their cabin grade is
like. For the most part, expect to see shorter board lengths, more color
variation, some open knot. Wormholes are common. This board here, you see, has got
a few wormholes in it, but each lot's different. It can change just in
different boxes that are in a pallet. With this lot right here, we've racked
out a box, you can see that there are some 2', 2 1/2', there's a
3 footer, but you see more 16-inch, 14-inch pieces than you do the long ones.
That's gonna be common in almost all of the cabin grade oak floors. Now, when we
go to a hickory floor, or over here with a maple, we're gonna see a longer board
length. That's because you don't see as much knot, you don't hardly see any
wormhole in Hickory. So the reason that you're getting short
boards is because they're cutting spots out that won't fit into higher grades. Well,
you just don't get a lot of that in Hickory. So with Hickory, the biggest
difference is the color. When we see the the splotch look in here, or the gray
color, that's not allowed in number one, so it falls out to a number two, even
this really dark coloration - some grain tear there - that's what people like
in Hickory for the most part. So the cabin great Hickory or cabin grade
Winchester Hickory is a pretty popular product. You'll see we run out of
it pretty quickly. When we get into the dark-stained oaks, now we've eliminated a
lot of the contrast we saw over the lighter oak or even in the Hickory. We'll
still see the short boards, we'll see wormholes, we'll see - there's a
little open knot right there. All that's common with an oak cabin grade floor.
This lot right here is a maple floor. Unusual. It had a lot of long
boards in it, don't know why, but that's the box that
we opened. That's just the way it was. A few shorts, some open knot on it,
some different dings or some coloration that that wouldn't make it into number
one. So, all these give you an idea of what
defects are common in our cabin. Most of them are gonna be natural defects.
There's not too many manufacturing defects. Occasionally you'll see a sander
dip or something in them, but for the most part they're natural defects. When
we hold up a single board and say, 'ooh, I don't like that board,' we may not like it in one
piece, but when we understand that each board is part of a mosaic. The more of
them you get down, the less that single board stands out. It becomes part of
something a lot bigger, and people like it a lot better that way. Something
else to consider - the waste factor. So, how much waste are we going to have? Well,
it depends on your house, and the wood that you choose, and the guy
that's installing it. A wide board, you're gonna have a little more waste, because
you're gonna have more rips when you get to the wall. You know. We're finishing up
over there at the wall, we cut this board this way. Okay, well with a 5" board,
you're gonna waste more than you would with a tunic order. Something else to
consider is if we're doing a whole house versus just a great room. So we might say,
oh, you know what, I don't want that board with those worm holes in it in the middle
of my living room. Can you put it in the middle your bedroom? Sure, or maybe even
the closets. Anything we use in the bedroom or closet's not waste. We've just
moved it somewhere to hide it a little bit. So when we're talking about waste,
how much are you gonna throw in the burn pile. If you're doing a whole house out
of cabin grade, I wouldn't use more than five percent waste. But then again, I'm
pretty cheap. Which brings us to the great point about the cabin grade wood
then all these cabins run about 40 to 50 percent of what a first-quality, running
line floor costs. A square foot's a square foot. So, you know, it doesn't
matter the width. What we see in our Winchester cabin is just tremendous
values. The best thing about the Winchester for us, though, is it's the
continuity that we see. It's the same every time. We don't get bad lots of
it. What you see here is what you're going to get. Sometimes it'll be a little
bit cleaner with a little bit longer boards, but for the most part this is
what you're gonna see. If you've got any questions, if you'd like
to see some samples, pick up the phone give us a call, or
send us an email. We'll be happy to get the samples to you. Thanks.