hello everyone I'm Colin canet today is
part three on how to save money buying
wood and the topic today is buying
direct from the mill
now I can tell you I have no hope of
giving you 40 years of experience in
buying wood in a few eight-minute videos
but what it will give you is a good
grounding with this video and with the
other ones so I hope you'll enjoy that
now I know that not everybody's
available for buying wood from a mill
sometimes is too much for people but you
know what you can do group buys too if
you can get together with some other
people maybe you can join together and
make a quantity buy but like anything
there's pros and cons to buying wood
from a mill and the good parts are
you're going to get a variety of cuts of
wood you're gonna get rifts on flats on
quarter-sawn you're also going to be
purchasing wood at a cheaper price
because you're getting it direct from
the mill now the on the bad side on the
cons there's a few things that you need
to be aware first of all the woods going
to be green because you're buying it
from a mill so it's going to be at some
state of wetness so it's going to have
to be dried the woods going to have all
sorts of cuts in and it's not likely
going to have been sorted you're also
going to need to halt at home you're
going to need to store it somewhere
you're going to need to monitor the
drying because the woods going to be too
wet to use right away and will almost
always be RIF or through a rough cut so
it's gonna need to be planed and jointed
at some point and you need to be aware
that not all mills are going to sell to
the general public so you'll need to
call them ahead of time and you know
what if you show up at a mill and you're
looking for one or two boards you're at
the wrong place cuz they're really only
looking for selling a quantity and
giving a discount for that now the first
thing they're gonna ask you when you
call the mill or when you show up at a
meal they're going to ask you how much
wood are you looking for so you're going
to need to know that answer you know
your how many board feet or how many
boards or you know a half truckload or a
half vanload or something
so you're going to need to give them an
idea and that way they'll be able to
help you pick out the best wood now
there's three kinds of Mills large mills
and usually a large meal we'll also have
a kiln and for those of you who haven't
seen a kiln this is what a kiln looks
like at a large mill and there the mill
itself is usually all enclosed so
there's really not much to see medium
sized Mills may sell to individuals but
probably where you're going to end up at
is a meal like this a small little mill
that has a like a portable band saw and
they likely will have some kind of a
little inventory of wood as well it may
have a decent inventory of wood and
that's probably what you're going to be
selecting from now whatever that
wherever you end up whatever mill you
end up with the the wood that you're
going to be looking at is likely going
to be what we call stacked and stickered
and that means it's stacked horizontally
it looks just like this and it's got
stickers what we call stickers which are
just little pieces of wood between all
the boards and that's to let the air
flow through to help the wood to dry out
and they use the same method when they
put the wood into the kilns now the wood
that a meal will get when they buy a log
or when they bring a log in there
usually 25 to 40 percent moisture
content so that's what they're cutting
at as woodworkers we like to be closer
to nine percent so you can see that
there's an awful lot of water that needs
to get rid of in that tree now if the
mill has already cut and stacked and
stickered the wood it will have dried to
a certain amount so you may be getting
it where it's already dried a little bit
but as a rule um you will be getting you
will be purchasing wood that's still 14
percent or more and when you get that
wood home you'll have to determine
whether you need to let it dry some more
outside or whether you can actually
bring it inside because we need to
eventually in most cases we need to try
and get that wood down around 9 percent
for most woodworking and furniture
making pride
Jax now if you don't have a moisture
meter now would be a great time to get
one because you're going to need one if
you're gonna purchase any lumber from a
mill because you're going to need to
monitor the moisture content so I'm
gonna take a moment now and go through
some of the wood here that I purchased
on my last visit to a mill now first of
all what you will get in a mill that you
typically won't get from a lumber store
is some live at now this one's pretty
rough here but it just gives you an
example that you can get live-edge
lumber direct from the mill more so than
you can from the lumber store now when
you buy lumber from the mill you're
going to in most cases you're going to
be getting rough lumber and you can see
that this is rough and it's quite thick
this is probably almost an inch thick
there's a three-quarter inch board
beside that so you can see you actually
waste a fair bit of material there and
sometimes I use that and I cut the
strips for different things but the
would you get might not be quite as
thick so it's going to be rough
sometimes when you get the wood as it's
drawing it's going to warp that's the
nature of wood the other thing is when
you're purchasing would watch for it ask
the mill if they an seal a most do not
some do but when you end seal you can
see that this one here there's no cracks
in it if they don't end seal you will
get cracks and you can see this one here
is crack now that's this one is in
sealed but you know what you this one's
gonna crack anyway and the reason is
because all of these look at all of
these knots in this area this board had
no hope of not cracking now if it was
not if these were not an sealed there
would likely be two or three or four
cracks and sometimes they will bleed up
the board so that makes almost in this
case almost a board foot of unusable
wood here and the same with this one you
know it's probably three-quarters of a
board so you don't want to be paying for
that so you're going to have to watch
for that so your board foot measurement
is probably if the woods
cracked or if it's not sealed your board
measurement wants to start here and and
carry on down the board you don't want
to be paying for wood that's going to be
cracking it's going to be useless so
it's just something that you need to
watch for it now this one cracked after
and this one's not a bad crack because
it's toward the center of the board so I
could actually cut that and use to have
two pieces of wood here so it's not a
total loss but the other reason I wanted
to show you this board is the other
thing you want to be looking for is
defects in boards and this one has got
it's loaded with knot so this one is not
really a good board if I looked at the
actual square board footage of this
board this area here is good
and then there's like a little strip up
there so this part down the middle here
it's got knots that are already cracking
and checking probably not good so all of
that stuff reduces how many board feet
and usually the the Sawyer at the mill
is going to know that now look at a
board like this that's a you know this
is a good solid board for example and
you'd probably pay and an now sometimes
what they'll do is they'll they'll take
a cross-section they'll say yeah there's
a few of them that are split in the end
a few that or not because we're giving
you such a discount we're not going to
worry about a few splits here and there
we just do sort of a bulk purchase so
there's all sorts of different ways of
buying wood and and Sawyer's and and
mill owners have different ways of doing
it but you need to be aware before you
walk through the gates of the kind of
things that you might be looking at now
the other thing to be aware of when
you're know when you're picking wood now
you're probably not going to be able to
select wood according to the pattern so
for example here I have some this is a
flats on board here and this is a
quarter sawn and a flats on and you can
see that this was actually sort of the
center of the tree right here and
they've
cut this piece out of it but in this
that very end that's a quarter sawn born
I couldn't find an actual quarter sawn
board when they went through my stack
but that's a quarter sawn board and this
now becomes flats on and there's also
this is this very end one here that's
actually rifts on what we call rifts on
but you're going to when you get a stack
of wood you're going to get a little bit
of everything in it but when you're
going through that stack you can sort
this yourself and when you find some
quarter sawn wood you want to set that
aside because that special wood and the
reason it's special is it's more stable
it it's there's less tendency of it to
twist it it has the nicest grain it's
the most stable and this kind of wood
here this is what we like to use for
tabletops and things like that
very nice stable wood the rest of this
we can use this and cut it and make it
for all sorts of different elements of
furniture but the quarter sawn is really
the premium if you were in a lumber
store and they had the wood separated
you would be paying more for quarter
sawn wood than you would for rifts on or
flats on now the other thing to watch
for when you're selecting wood or when
you're picking the wood from your pile
and looking looking at the wood you
often don't get a real good chance to
look at the wood until you're pulling it
off that pile and and loading it in your
vehicle but try and watch for wood that
has a similar coloration and in a small
mill they're usually cutting from one
log at a time so you'll typically get
wood that's in the same part of a pile
that's all from the same tree and that's
good because you don't want to get wild
color variations because it's very hard
to match that wood especially if you're
making larger furniture projects now one
of the questions I always ask when I go
to the mill is do you have any shorts
and shorts are wood that they cut that
is shorter than usually the six or the
eight foot that they normally have and
if they have that sometimes they're
willing to get rid of that a little bit
less price because not everybody wants
short wood like this and in my case it
was perfect so just another little tip
to watch for when you go to the mill
well that concludes my video on buying
lumber direct from the mill lots of
little tips that you can do and there's
an article on woodwork web that will
give you even more detail and don't
forget to stay tuned for the next
segment you may even want to subscribe
I'm called a cadet for woodwork web
thanks for watching
you