Wondering where you all get your lumber from? I have looked at Lowe’s and Home Depot but we all know what we get from them and limited variety.
What are you looking for?
A variety of different types. Right now I have access to popular, oak, pine, and cedar.
There’s already a long list. Start here:
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You need to get educated on the types of lumber available. There are likely sawmills in your area. However those produce green wood that takes 1-3 years to be ready to use. If they have a kiln that speeds it up and also increases the cost.
Next would be the types of finishing of the wood your purchase. There is rough cut lumber fresh off the sawmill bandsaw blade. This can vary in thickness and is certainly rough. If you buy this type of lumber you need to joint the boards and then plane them to get two parallel surfaces. If you do not have a jointer and/or planner than you can buy 2S boards which means two sides parallel and rough edges. This type of lumber can be trimmed on a tablesaw or a router table to “joint” the edges. This would require a jig to hold your board on the table saw to cut it straight or a split fence on the router table to joint the edges. The last is 4S lumber which means it is finished on all 4 edges of a board. Depending on your woodworking experience this may be the easiest choice and is what you get from the box stores. However the big box stores locally for me have oak, poplar and pine. Very limited and quite expensive.
There are online retailers and also the places like Rockler and Woodcraft. If they have local stores they carry a pretty good selection of lumber. You should also search for any independent woodworking stores in your area. You can also buy lumber from ebay and even Amazon.
The best thing is to find a local source where you can look at the wood in person. Buying on the internet works but you dont know what you got until it shows up.
You should familiarize yourself with pricing. Most lumber is sold by the board foot. That means that the width, the thickness and length are calculated to come up with a total board foot number and that is multiplied by the price per board foot. This is the only way to compare apples to apples in pricing at different retailers. Do some research and familiarize yourself with how to calculate the board feet of a piece of lumber so you know exactly what you are getting and how much it is.
Wood is a natural product that when cut is full of water. After being cut the tree starts losing water. During the milling process it loses more water. After kiln or air drying the wood looses even more water. Finally it gets down to a usable amount of less than 10% and is ready for use in woodworking. If you ask usually a wood dealer will have a moisture meter. If you buy from an independent sawyer see if they have one. It is advisable to have a moisture meter if you are going to buy wood from independent sources. You can get cheap ones that work off Amazon.
The bottom line is you need to educate yourself about lumber, your needs and what you want to achieve. In the short paragraphs above I barely scratched the surface of lumber buying and sourcing. Buyer beware.
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Try searching for hardwood lumber in google maps. That might give you some locations. If in usa, woodworking stores such as rockler or woodcraft carry lumber but prices may be higher. They’d also possibly know some local areas.
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Where in Texas are you from?
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