Buying wood

[genek]

Buying wood in the rough is cheaper than buying it finished.
If your have a local saw mill that kiln dries wood and you own a planner. It is far cheaper to drive a few hours buy your wood than to buy it finished. If you can buy fas shorts they are just as good but only come in 4 foot sections, you can also buy fas selects which comes in 6 foot sections.. Also you can buy wood in lengths up to 16 foot and in different grades from fas to no 2 common... The saw mills also throw away some good section that they may let you pick out of their junk bin.

Food for thought.

This is how i buy all of my wood.

Pricing for cherry in my area.

4/4 fas 8' to 16' 3.90 bft
6' select 3.00
no1 common 2.70
no 2 common 1.40
fas shorts 2.00

best way to buy wood is the fas if you do not need the length

[steve_g]

A recent trip from Dallas to St. Paul Minnesota Reminded me of how far apart the trees are in Texas... at least in the Dallas area and west. Anyone I purchased hardwood from in the past has gone out of business and we seem to be left with hobby sources. A "local" mill would involve at least a five hour drive and they would have Oaks, Pecan, Mesquite, and some sorry grades of Walnut. Looks like I'll be paying in the $5.50 -- $6.++ range for 4/4 FAS Cherry.

[genek]

Are there any high end cabinet shops in your area... They have a supplier someplace.. By the way.. Some will give you their waste...some will let you buy it a little more than they pay... Which is normally cheaper than the retail places.

[michael_schwartz]

I buy from a midsize independent sawing, and drying operation.

The pricing is somewhere in between retail and wholesale, but the key point is that they do let you pick. They also have tons of oddball stuff you would never see at a wholesaler. (Spalted beech, ambrosia maple, wormy butternut, live edge flame birch, elm, sycamore, huge slabs of pine, you name it.)

I recently picked up a set curly white oak boards that are heavily figured in spots for about $5.00 a board foot. They had pulled them out of a run of 40k board feet of flooring, and set them aside.

I buy most of my material rough sawn. Sometimes I will pay them to take everything down to about 13/16 for 4/4 (more or less depending on what I am doing) I think they charge about 20 cents a board foot to do this. They have a very heavy planer with carbide insert heads on both the top and bottom, and they can run a few hundred board feet in a single pass, within a few minutes. This can be a real timesaver, and saves my planer from a lot of wear and tear.

[woodworx]

You can buy wood from a mill if you know where they are. Obviously you can't reliably go pick up some eastern Cherry on the West coast though.

The mills will have different ways with dealing with the odd-ball boards. Wholesale companies don't want to buy the spalted, curly, figured, birdseye, or burl boards unless the saw mill can develop full units and sell them for what they are. If you know a smaller mill close by that discards these boards, it might be a little gold mine! (don't tell anyone!)

Buying FAS is also not the best way to buy lumber. Most production companies will often buy #1 common for the amount of clear, short cuttings they can yield from a board. FAS does not guarantee heart/sap content in many species as well as defects or character % on the face or back of the board. It is all about the clear cutting %. It gets tricky, and every species is different.

The only thing that defines an FAS board from a Select & Better is the FAS board must be over 6", and most mills will throw in 5-1/2" wide pieces and hope to not hear anything back. Your local lumber yard might allow people to cut off pieces of FAS grade and leave a smaller chunk in the rack. If you buy an FAS short at this place, you might only yield what a #1 Common board will yield, therefore you just payed too much for that short. (could be $2-5 bf too much)

#1 Common boards will actually yield pretty well for small rips (1-3") and short chops (2-4'). If you run a rip saw or are running production moulding, the best thing to do is use higher grade boards to ensure clarity, especially if you are needing wider longer pieces.

Small shops will yield better, but in the production world I use an estimated 35% loss on most domestics and import lumber to yield 100% clear mouldings. Walnut I anticipate 50-55% loss. Asking for long (all heart/clear) walnut pieces is getting harder and harder since the quality has diminished over the last couple years.

4/4 Eastern Maple prices in Pacific Northwest:
Musical instrument grade (100% clear, 100% white 2 sides) $4.03
S/B $2.93
1C $2.23
2C $1.83

[bobmoore]

Steve;
That must be hard shopping for hardwood down there. I did some quick math and I think I could put walnut, cherry, ect. on your doorstep for $6.00/brd ft. if you don't need huge quantities.
Bob