Local Wood Selection

Mine has Pine, Poplar, Red Oak, Cedar, and…well, that’s about it. However, so far I’m mostly dealing with a certain orange colored store that caters more toward the DIY home improvement crowd ;)

-- "Give me your poor tools, your tired steel, your huddled masses of rust." Yep, I ripped off the Statue of Liberty. That's how I roll!

Interesting blog, Blake.

Here on East Texas at the big boxes you can get the following:

Southern Yellow Pine
Cedar
Pine
hemlock (2×4’s)

Hardwood:

Poplar
Oak

At a specality store about 60 miles away carries about everything.
Too many to mention but you can look for yourself.

http://www.hardwoodbarn.com/inventory.htm

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

In the lumber yards here the majority of the wood is imported, but I will try to break it down to available native and imported woods.

Native woods available in the lumber yards

Birch, Alsder Aspen, Maple (Norwegian) Pine and Fir.

Imported wood at my local lumber yard (168 km away)

White Oak (European & American), Ash (US), Cherry (US), Walnut (EU & US), Hard Maple (US), Beech (Eu),

Abachi, Teak, Mahogany, Iroko, Jatoba, Zebra wood (Exotics).

Other wood available here but self felled/milled

Bird Cherry, Rowan, Lime, Oak, Elm, Larch.

Luckily the prices are not to far away from what you pay in the US, providing you buy about 432bf at a time!

By the way the Baltic/Finnish Birch ply wood is imported from Spain into to Finland – we export them the trees, the Spaniards make and sell it back to us (styrange economic logic there!) an 8*4 3/4” is 96€ (US$ 140) a sheet.

-- Tony - All things are possible, just some things are more difficult than others! - SKYPE: Heron2005 (http://www.poydatjatuolit.fi)

Up until a couple of years ago, I’d have to travel 35 miles to get a selection. Now I have a fully stocked hardwoods supplier [domestic and exotic] about 10 minutes away from my house. Sweet!

always,
J.C.

-- "Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein

Down there in the central coast y’all have Jackel Enterprises. You lucky dogs.

Up here in the North Bay we’ve got Mount Storm's prodigious list, and of course I could always drive down to MacBeath, and the Woodcraft in Santa Rosa has a moderate selection of all sorts of fancy woods, and I’d really have to haunt those places more to find out what specific woods cost, however…

Right now I’ve got enough South American mahogany, western maple and birch to do a bathroom vanity, our baseboards, and all the solid wood bits (including door frames and faces) of the planned kitchen remodel, all because I kept my eyes out on Craig’s List. The maple and birch came in at $2/bd.ft., surfaced (although there’s just a bit more thickness variation than the seller claimed, at that price I’m not complaining).

Sure, I’d like some nicely figured cherry for the office (current plan is to do the office/guest room up “man room” style), and I’m also wanting some, I don’t know, maybe white oak to do some dining room chairs, but I don’t have space to store the wood right now, and by the time I get there I’m sure I’ll have found another cabinet shop that needs to get rid of its “scraps”, or what-have-you.

Thus I’ve looked beyond the “grown locally” or what-have-you to “what’s available used or reclaimed”. Not a consistent supply, but if, like me, you’re doing small to mid-sized projects and don’t mind buying a hundred or two board feet at a time there’s a lot of really cool stuff out there second-hand.

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/User:DanLyke

East Bay Area – CA: I prefer PALS West Oakland to MacBeath. The selection isn’t quite as good for lumber (MacBeath has everything you can think of) but they are much friendlier to the weekender and for sheet goods they simply can’t be beat, huge, huge selection. They also have a decent sized sustainable section called EarthSource (in the same building)

Between MacBeath and PALS though you can get anything you can think of.

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

Hi Blake,

The dealer that I use routinely supplies the following:

Oak, Cherry, Walnut, Poplar, Ash, Sassafras, Maple, Cedar, Coffee bean, Hickory, and Knotty Pine

But if I wanted to go to the retail stores then just about anything else is available but they are pricey.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

Sassafras? Coffee Bean? Crazy. Never heard of some of these being sold regularly as lumber. Very interesting. Please don’t forget to include your geographic area in the post. Scott, looks like you’re in Kentucky.

-- Check out my new website! http://www.theeasellife.com

I use a local lumber yard that has all the basics; oak, poplar, pine, maple (hard, soft, birds eye, spalted, ash, basswood, walnut, cherry, and on and on. Here’s their website for anyone interested: http://www.curiouswoods.com.

-- Jeremy, Saratoga, NY

Go to www.forloversofwood.com

(Jealous yet?)

That’s my local lumber yard- 1/4 mile from my house. Your discount improves with each round of double doubles and donuts

Locally we get:

Black Cherry
Hard & Soft Maple
Birch
Beech
Walnut
Red Oak
White Oak
Hickory
Chestnut (occasionally)
White Pine
Poplar (Called Tulipwood in some locales)
Willow
Eastern White Cedar
Elm

I also have my own personal stash of apple, pear, Manitoba Maple, cherry, walnut, chestnut, catalpa, pine, poplar, hard maple, black locust (for bows), and aspen, all at the farm where I grew up. You just have to plan ahead when you harvest your own.

-- The only easy wood project is a fire

The farm is usually where the “easy” wood projects are built. LOL

-- The only easy wood project is a fire

Rockler has a decent selection of hardwoods. The place I go to when I want a certain type of wood is Eisenbrand in Torrance, CA., they usually have anything you want or could possibly want! If they don’t, just ask and they can get it. They usually carry select grades and figured species.

Most of the big box stores have basically the same selections nationwide plus a few oddballs specific to your region.

-- --Chuck

grovermadman – I have been to Eisenbrand and found it to be one of the most expensive places
around. That’s why I usually don’t mention them. He does have a fantastic selection though . Lots of stuff in
those trailers upstairs.

It’s a bit of a drive for you to Carlsbad but the price is worth it.
http://www.anexotichardwood.com

A couple of examples: (per BF)

$23 vs $15.25 for Holly
$9.50 vs $5.80 for Purple Heart

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.