DEAFENING, in plastering, a term used in Scotland, for PUGGING, which see.
DEAL (from the Dutch, deel) the wood of the fir-tree, as cut up for the use of building, which Is of two kinds, yellow and white.
Deals are chiefly imported from Christiana. and other parts of Norway ; from Dantzig, and several parts of Prussia ; from Petersburg, Archangel, and various parts of Russia. They are sold by the piece or standard.
In London, stuff that is kept on hand, consists generally of deals of various lengths, most commonly three inches thick, and seldom exceeding nine inches wide. They are broken or cut down into various thicknesses, called boards or leaves, so that a deal will always have one cut less than there are leaves, When the leaves are thinner than half an inch, the deal will divide into five or more parts, and is therefore termed fire-cut sluff, and thus the qualifying word is applied according to the number of pieces. Whole deal is one inch and a quarter thick, and slit deal the half of that.
Deals are formed by sawing the trunk of a tree into longitudinal pieces. of more or less thickness, according to
the purpose they are intended to serve. They are rendered much harder by throwing them into salt-water as soon as they are sawn, keeping them in three or four days, and after wards drying them by exposing them to the air : hut neither this nor any other method will preserve them from shrinking.
The quality and well-seasoning of deals are very essential to the construction of buildings. They are employed in naked flooring, partitions, the boarding of floors, doors, windows, architraves, cornices, mouldings, dados, plinths, bases, surbases, wainscoting, linings, columns, pilasters, chitnney-pieces, &c.
White deal should only be used for inside work, as in bed chambers ; it is less liable to shrink than yellow, and being a cheaper article, is to be preferred in panelling. Yellow deal, on account of its hardness, from being saturated with turpentine, is more fit to endure violence and exposure to the weather.