All Inclusive Guide to Wood Classifications and Species (Part 4)
What to Expect When You Visit the Lumberyard
You have finalized your woodworking design and now have your cut list, but you can often become overwhelmed when you first visit the lumberyard. Even after countless visits, I still end up spending at least an hour at the lumberyard and leaving covered in sweat. I don’t think this is a step many new woodworkers or clients think about or anticipate. A furniture maker’s trip to the lumberyard for rough sawn lumber is often the equivalent of taking a math exam while lifting weights at the gym, the trick is to try and not get discouraged.
The difficulty of the lumberyard comes from attempting to satisfy two goals simultaneously: 1) Finding lumber with particular grain patterns and coloration to meet your desired goal, 2) Finding rough sawn lumber in the dimensions which you can fulfill your cut list. You may take a cut list to the lumberyard which says you need 1 piece which is 4/4 thick by 8 inches wide and 9 feet long, but the chances of the lumberyard having this magical piece or you finding it are quite small. So begins your hunt for the best closest outcome while you play Tetris in your head with the boards you have available and tape measurer to get the best-looking boards with the least amount of waste…and there will always be waste. As furniture makers and woodworkers, we do our best to minimize all waste, not only to save money for clients and ourselves but to prevent unnecessary waste of natural resources.
Depending on your lumberyard and their rules you may be able to dig through the stacks of lumber to find the pieces you need. This leads me to two points: 1) talk to the employees of the lumberyard and find out what their procedure is, 2) If you are allowed to dig through the lumber then be courteous and don’t make a mess. Make sure to bring a list of the pieces with dimensions you need, a tape measurer and a calculator. If you didn’t ask the company for a price list of lumber you’re looking at before you came then do so now. This will help you determine what the total is going to be before they tell you. You will get the prices by board foot of a particular species and thickness. Lumber with certain desirable figuration may also be set aside with a higher board foot cost. Board foot is a measurement of volume were a piece 1”x12”x12” equals 1 board foot. To determine the board foot of any piece simply measure the height, width and length in inches and divide by 144. Many rough sawn boards will have changing dimensions since they haven’t been milled, so you will just take an average measurement. Also keep in mind that many boards may have defects which you will not want, but regardless they will be factored into the price of how much you will pay.