How to Buy Rough Lumber

every project starts with a trip to the lumberyard and our little shaker table is no different you've got a variety of options from buying pre surface lumber to buying rough lumber and milling it yourself and that second option is a lot cheaper for our little table we're going to use walnut one of North America's most beautiful woods and one that you can't get at a home Center buying rough lumber and milling it yourself is a great way to raise your woodworking game and we'll show you how to do it you these are all the parts we need to build our little shaker table now for 3/4 inch thick material like this you can usually find it at a lumberyard but when it comes to building these really thick legs you're going to have to go to a hardwood dealer now you can find a hardwood dealer within about an hour's drive in most areas and when you find one near you we don't want you to feel intimidated when you walk in the door so we're going to head out to one right now by the way we'll be getting enough lumber to build two of these tables and one other thing bring along your cut list we made a detail drawing and then list it out all the parts we need to build our table that's called the cut list and you can get it as part of this video series and I like to bring a few other things when I go to buy lumber I bring along this bag and inside I've got gloves for handling rough lumber splinters can be a bear of course a good old trusty tape measure I've got the cut list in there and a lumber crayon sometimes when it gets confusing and I have a lot of parts I like to mark what the parts are on the rough boards that I buy and the last thing is a block plane and you'll see why when we get to the lumberyard it's kind of like your little woodworking purse let's call it a manly satchel whatever floats your boat you drive it sure you're gonna buy lunch yeah maybe but no Mexican we got that last time all right all right this is our local hardwood Haven Conway lumber step one is making friends with the guy behind the desk this is Jeff Hey hey Jeff what's happening hey we're looking for some walnut for a couple small tables we need some four quarter maybe for the top in the rails and stuff and then some eight quarter for the legs sure we got some stuff right over here so fourth quarter six quarter eighth quarter those are just old lumber yard terms four quarters of an inch so four quarters an inch six quarters an inch and a half and eight quarters 2 inches pretty simple right but those measurements are for rough boards so when we get done planing this four quarter board it's really going to measure in at about three-quarters of an inch that's true a lot of times this board at a lumber yard will be completely rough sod but here they've done something on there for Florida lumber called hit or miss planing where they just give it a whack through the planer and we can really see the grain it's a nice option to have one thing to avoid when you're buying walnut is the lighter colored SAP that's near the outside of the house got some SAP wood in it so we'll skip that one so does this oh wait here's one so good ones nice let me grab my cut list out of here yeah it looks like we need a to the rails four for each table and they're 11 and a half inches long all right let's take a look at this one that one looks nice oh sure yeah that'd be great there's one there's the other one alright those are great for the rails do you have some wider stuff though that we could maybe with some nice grain that we could use for the tabletop awesome all right look this walnut will look wonderful with a simple clear finish but there are plenty of beautiful hardwoods widely available and you could make your table out of any of them there's cherry curly maple white oak exotic woods like mahogany and many many others actually I think we can get both of our table tops out of this one piece okay how about the shelves all right let's dig a little bit this one looks a little funky let's move that oh alright here now we're in business is great okay now we need that 2-inch thick walnut for the legs yeah where was that again Jeff okay cool here's a neat quarter board with really nice straight grain that could be good for our legs yeah but we're not making ten tables ASA that's true that's a little bit more wood than we wanted to buy let's move that oh here we go alright I think we can get all eight legs out of that great yeah this board is truly roughs on so one trick you can do at the lumberyard is actually to block playing it a little bit just to preview the grain but you got to ask your lumber guy hey Jeff is it alright if i plane on this a little bit yeah that's nice and straight that's great all right I'm going to go get this tallied up here's another quick tip if you want to stay friends with your lumber guy put the pile back the way you found it will cost us a little over 200 bucks for two tables so this isn't cheap but the woods going to be gorgeous you definitely don't have to stay in it and these two tables we're going to make are going to last us a lifetime here's some tips for tying down lumber a truck or van is your best bet but the lumberyard can help you tie boards to your car's roof rack to they'll also cut them in half to fit them in a car but make sure they cut them in the right place for the parts you want out of the board if you're loading boards into a pickup truck keep the tailgate up and rest the board on it if you wrap a strap or plastic around the boards and then put one tie-down across the back of the truck you'll be just fine for boards as long as twelve feet just remember to attach a red flag or a cloth of some kind if the boards stick out more than a couple of feet from the end of your vehicle well we're back in the shop with our rough pieces in the next episode we'll show you how to cut them to size and mill them flat and smooth

Channel: FineWoodworking

Views: 763,277

Keywords: nightstand, walnut, woodworking, how to, DIY, Shaker, construction, carpentry, How to Buy Rough Lumber, Rough Lumber

Id: KcHaAgomDls

Length: 6min 9sec (369 seconds)

Published: Tue May 17 2011