Buying Hardwood Lumber | The Ultimate Guide | How to

[Music] [Music] [Music] today I want to talk about wood okay more importantly I want to talk about how to buy hardwood lumber I want to talk about things like buying rough sawn lumber buying s4s FAS s2s r1e quarter sawn rifts on planes on what does it mean if I'm buying fifteen board feet of four quarter quarter sawn white oak I want to talk about wood so this is some rough sawn cherry what I mean when I say rough sawn it still has the marks from the sawmill on the surface it needs to be surfaced when you buy rough sawn you are buying in quarters so this is a four quarter board meaning that it is one inch thick or four quarters of an inch you can buy stock in four quarters five quarters six quarters ten quarter 12 quarters 16 quarters so on and so forth five quarter is one and a quarter inches thickness five quarters of an inch so four quarters would be one inch five quarters would be an inch from a quarter six quarter would be an inch and a half etc etc when you buy this it is a nominal thickness once you joint and plane it down you'll end up with a finished surface piece that is [Music] three-quarters to seven eighths of an inch thick something like that this is a piece of surfaced cherry so it has no mil marks on it anymore and this is ready for a project some hardwood dealers will offer s2s r1e what that means it is surfaced on two sides that's the s to s and then ripped one edge r1e so it has one straight edge two flat faces and then usually more rough sawn edge that you can then rip on the table saw they're generally flat they're usually more expensive because they've done some of the milling process for you but it can save time in the shop if you are pressed for it and feeling buying rough sawn lumber s for ss4 S stands for surfaced for size that's two flat faces and two straight edges this is the stuff that you're going to find in the big-box stores like Home Depot and Lowe's now s for s lumber can be pretty expensive per foot and an S for s is usually sold by the linear foot now when we talk about rough sawn lumber we buy it by the board foot board foot is a measurement of volume so rather than buying linear feet a Sawyer is going to try to get the most yield out of a log so as he's cutting he might have a six inch wide board a four inch wide board a nine inch wide board so not every board you're not buying two by sixes that are getting run through a computerized mill you're buying hardwood lumber that came from a log that a Sawyer had to look at specifically and say okay I can get these boards from this part of the law these boards from that part of the log so when buying in board feet it can be a little bit confusing but it's basically a cubic measurement so you measure by the nominal thickness by the nominal width by Veen length and there's a formula that I'll go over in a minute okay so when we look at the end of a log we need to look at the growth rings growth rings occur as a tree matures every year and are concentric around the pith of the tree pith is the more common name but it's also known as the medulla more on that and a bit pith is a soft spongy material that transports nutrients through the tree throughout its life and its death the pith is bad as far as all lumber is concerned as lumber dries and loses moisture content it shrinks think of a grape and a raisin as the wood shrinks those concentric growth rings get smaller as well now think of a rubber band that has lost its elasticity and dry rotted when you try to stretch it something has to give and it breaks the same thing happens around the pith of the tree you can see it here as I said a torch to my piece the crack started emanating from the pit okay going forward let's talk about flat or plain sawn some Sawyer's will log and cut it from bark edge to bark edge through the plank this is considered flats on and gives the highest yield of wide boards in this case the natural edge of the board is preserved and is often referred to as live edge or natural edge this includes the heartwood and sapwood of the plank each of these boards is referred to as a flitch with thicker Fletch's usually referred to as slabs as a rule of thumb I call any Fletch 2-inch thick or more a slab boards cut this way are often kept in sequence and stacked in the order they are cut for veneering and book matching applications some lumber dealers will advertise flitch cut lumber and usually they are referring to boards kept in sequence as they're cut in catalog the reassembled log is known as a boule you'll often see people like Matt Cremona this is a pool cut and dry lumber in this method this takes a proper storage space and is expensive but can put your work on the next level often at hardwood dealers you'll see flats on lumber with no live edge when looking at the face screen of flats on lumber you'll see what they call cathedrals this is essentially the apex or the top of the growth ring as the mill sliced through those rings when you look at the end grain of the board you'll see those rings in a rainbow shape or somewhat of a smile without being properly stacked for drying those smiles would like to turn more indifferent as they dry and this is what causes the boards to cup this lumber it was most likely cut from what they call a camp I had a hard time finding the technical definition for can't other than a partially processed log so for this example I'm going to use a four sided can't and next we'll talk about quarter sign I've seen a lot of Sawyer's use different methods of getting the most yield of quarter sawn lumber out of a log each will have his or her own method but for the purposes of this video we just need to understand what quarter sawn is quarter sawn lumber is lumber that has the grain running perpendicular to the face of the board this gives a few benefits one the lumber is extremely stable with the orientation of the growth rings it just scuffing and twisting and - it can offer aesthetic benefits with the growth rings perpendicular to the face of the board the show face now should have all the grain running in straight parallel lines this can be beneficial aesthetically for instance I made a medicine cabinet while back for tools today calm when making the doors for the cabinet I book match the panels for the doors and wanted to offset the flats on grain with quarter sawn Stiles and rails that way I could use the same species of wood but have the Stiles and rails sort of frame the panels remember before when I said the pith is also known as the medulla well there are these veins that come off of medulla called medullary rays they help nourish the tree while it's alive and they run across the growth rings as you get nearer and nearer to quarter sawn lumber you get more and more in playing with those medullary Ray's and in some species like oak those Ray's present themselves as these beautiful flecks that look like sugar pockets all over the board this feature is very prominent in a hallmark of mission-style furniture arts and crafts and a signature of people like the Gustav Stickley medullary rays also present themselves and wood with smaller closed pores or diffuse porous as they're known like maple and cherry I call this figure lace and in fact quarter-sawn Sycamore is also known as American lace wood I only had one chunk of sycamore lying around in the mud outside but I quarter-sawed it to show you what the lace looks like this would be considered quarter sawn spalted Sycamore the spalting being the discoloration caused by the fungus from the mud okay let's talk about rifts on rift sawn lumber is cut so the growth rings are at a bias to each flat face at the wood the Rings are between 30 to 60 degrees with 45 degrees being ideal this stock is really great for things like table legs with the grain oriented in this direction each of the four phases of the wood all have a relatively straight grain making the grain pattern similar no matter which side is viewed both quarter sawn and rifts on are usually more expensive per board foot because there's less yield of these cuts now let's talk about the board-foot formula like I said it's a measure of volume there are board-foot calculators available but the formula I use is thickness and inches by width in inches by length and feet all divided by 12 that is to say one board foot is equal to a board that is one inch thick by 12 inches wide by one foot long I know that a 1 by 12 by 10 foot is 10 board feet and kind of as a standard I know that a 1 by 6 by 10 would be 5 board feet but let's do the math 1 inch times 6 inches times 10 feet equals 60 board inches I guess divide that by 12 to give us our 5 board feet now say this board was plainsong red oak which in my area is somewhere around three dollars and sixty-five cents a board foot 365 times five board feet and we know that this board costs $18 and 25 cents let's do it again this time with an eight quarter board so this board is 2 inches thick 7 inches wide and 9 feet long 2 times 7 times 9 equals 126 divide that by 12 gives us 10 and 1/2 board feet now let's say this board was black walnut walnut is at a premium in my area at $8 a board foot this board would cost $84 so hardwoods can be expensive but that's why so many woodworkers collect wood when they get great deals oftentimes there will be deals out there where someone is getting rid of the wood but you have to buy the whole lot the downside is you have to store it the benefit is you can get the wood at a fraction of the cost of retail when you start hearing things like FAS fabr one common these are what dealers used to grade wood according to the National hardwood lumber Association DNA a FAs standing for first and seconds and it is the clearest grade of lumber meaning so much percentage of the face of the wood has to be clear of knots and defects to be considered FAS before it being knocked down to the next grade to me this is subjective I want to buy quality wood obviously but sometimes what are considered defects give the wood a lot of character and really make the piece the last thing I want to talk about in this episode is figure this doesn't have anything to do with the shape of the wood but certain ornamental qualities a wood has when you hear about a curly figure this has to do with how the tree grew sometimes a tree will grow with wavy grain due to mutations or stresses to the tree as it grew when you slice that undulating grain you now have a board that has added dimension a cat's eye effect this is called chatoyancy you'll often hear of curly maple it's also referred to as Tiger maple or fiddleback but you can find curl in many other species as well you'll also hear about crotch figure here is a walnut crotch as the two branches diverged the tree had stresses on it creating this really interesting grain figured woods are often more difficult to work because of the changing grain direction but if they worked well can be a sign of craftsmanship and they really add a whole nother dimension to your work these again come at a price but for my money I love figured hardwoods well alright guys that's it for this time I know that was a longer video very education-based it could be a little dry and no that but there was just a lot of information that I wanted to cover because I want you to walk into the lumber dealer next time and act like a pro know exactly what you're doing when they start talking about quarter-sawn riffs on board feet of yada yada yada now hopefully you know and now you know what to look for in maybe some craigslist finds or maybe if you go to a local Sawyer and they start talking jibber jabber you'll know exactly what they're talking about if you like this video please share it with a friend maybe hit that like button and if you aren't already go ahead and subscribe let me know in the comments section if you like these more educational in depth videos or if you just want me to stick to the storytelling I am I do what I am I did make this it print into a shirt which you can find over on my website it's a teespring link that is www M Walker cocom and you can find turning some smaller stuff that I've done over there cutting boards things like that that aren't big big projects until next time guys I'm will Walker this is the William Walker Company project channel I'll see you guys real soon thanks for watching you

Channel: Wm. Walker Co.

Views: 87,691

Keywords: woodworking, woodwork, how to, what is a boardfoot, calculating boardfeet, lumber, roughsawn, s4s, s2sr1e, FAS, hardwood, oak, maple, cherry, walnut, sycamore, quartersawn, riftsawn, plainsawn, flatsawn, slabs, flitch, boule, flitch cut, bookmatching, slab lumber, natural edge, live edge, diy, beginner, for beginners, craft, handmade, pith, medullary rays, sawmill, sawing lumber, lumber terminology, hardwood dealer, how to buy hardwoods, lumber tips, will walker, wm walker co, understanding, what is

Id: 7YOKDDDrsJQ

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 01 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/acmonster]

Great video. Loved the paper tree examples. Very helpful

[u/yogimanbear]

That was helpful. Thanks!