# Buying wood online



## wabuckner

Does anyone know of an online site to buy wood from? Are there any that are reliable and not too expensive?


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## bigike

Yea woodfinder is the best. You can also try ebay.


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## wabuckner

Thanks Jim and Ike. I'll check those out.


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## miles125

I'd consider shipping probably makes online prohibitively expensive. If it's small pieces like pen blanks maybe. Try going to yard sales or flea markets and buying solid wood items and simply salvaging the wood from them. Nowadays a Maple chair is worth more for its raw wood than being a chair. Ponder that sad fact.


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## MedicKen

I have had real good luck with Bellforrestproducts.com. They are really good, prices are nice, quick shipping and best of all a real nice selection of quality lumber. They are a smaller family run business. I have ordered from them a few times and was very happy with what I received.


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## CharlieM1958

Wall Lumber. Their 20 bf UPS bundles are the best value I've found, and the quality is excellent.


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## TMcG

x2 for Bell Forest Products, always willing to answer emails, make suggestions etc..

Though that Wall Lumber looks interesting !


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## SwedishIron

Here are two sites I've had great experiences buying from given the quality of their lumber, selection, customer service, reasonable shipping costs, prompt shipping and excellent packing. Gilmer Wood Company and Allen from Milwaukee Woodworks


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## RogerBean

I'll second Charlie on Steve Wall Lumber. I bought a sizable quantity of Honduras Mahogany from them a while back and the quality and value was excellent. For exotics there are a number of sites that offer pictures of what you are buying (that board) and these are the ones I favor.

You mention "not too expensive". Hence, it depends on what you're looking for. We all occasionally stumble across a great piece of wood in a firewood pile, or estate sale, etc. but for the most part, the folks making really great projects out of wonderful wood that they are typically paying top buck for their materials.


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## WayneC

There is Cook Woods in Oregon…

http://www.cookwoods.com/


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## Eric_S

Ive used walllumber.com and badgerwood.com with no problems.


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## McKinneyMike

Bill, I am located in McKinney,Texas. Not sure what part of Texas that you are in, but if you are close by, I would welcome you to drop in and visit. I will also ship to anywhere in the US.

I owned Curly Woods for 7 years and think that if you do some searches, you will find that I have garnered a very good reputation for high quality woods at fair prices over the years. I closed our warehouse in 2007 due to economic conditions, but had the itch to restart again so I started McKinney Hardwood Lumber.

I do not as a rule post photos of individual boards, as that would increase the cost to the customer and rarely are any photos telling of the final quality. I do offer a 100% money back guarantee and have never had any issues that were not resolved immediately! I value my long standing reputation and will do all that I can do to to continue my relationships with any and all customers. I am fond of saying that we don't just make customers we make long term friendships.

If I do not have lumber that I feel will satisfy a customer's needs completely, I will not ship it period. I would rather lose a sale than lose my reputation and that is a promise.

My primary focus is on figured and exotic woods, but I do offer qtr sawn White Oak in wider than normal widths (10" and wider), Cherry that offers minimal sap wood and better than average widths, from Pennsylvania exclusively, unless otherwise stated, and Black Walnut when I can source unsteamed and kiln dried materials with minimal sap wood. It is extremely difficult to source unsteamed kiln dried Walnut these days unless you purchase from smaller mills, but there are a few that will meet my demands. The larger mills steam Walnut in their efforts to hide sap wood content, which it simply does not do and it ruins the beautiful coloration's of Walnut lumber IMO.

I have a handful of professional graders that work in the larger saw mills that hand select almost all of my lumber that I purchase, at a premium of course. This allows me to avoid excessive sapwood in my Cherry and Walnut lumber. I am not the cheapest lumber dealer, but if you want very good quality lumber, I think that if you search around, my reputation is solid for delivering what i say that I offer.

The down side for you being in Texas is that we will have to charge state sales tax along with the shipping costs. Again though if you are anywhere close to McKinney, I would welcome the opportunity to show you our stock and meet you.


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## wabuckner

Hi Mike,

I'm located in the Houston area. I'm looking for Cherry, Oak, Walnut, Mahogany, Poplar, and a few others. If you've seen my projects, that's mostly the kind of things I'm looking to do. I want to buy bundles of wood. I'll definitely check out your site.

Thank you for your response, Bill


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## McKinneyMike

Hi Bill,

I do not offer commodity woods like Ash, Maple, Poplar, Red Oak, like I did when I owned Curly Woods. I have decided to focus on the best woods that I can find and leave the commodity woods to others. I had too many issues getting consistent quality in the commodity types of woods and to be honest pricing competition on these woods is just too cut throat for even wholesale level sales, especially in this down economy. One bad load of lumber can really hurt if it will not sell quickly.

Steve Wall at Wall Lumber is a stand up guy and he is definitely a great source to utilize. His bundles are surfaced to 13/16" though, so they can meet the 70 lbs max shipping weight break. Many people prefer to have their material as thick as possible. We skip plane to clean up the surfaces and leave the rest as again many people want as much thickness as possible. If I remember correctly Wall Lumber does not sort out for sap wood content on either Cherry or Black Walnut lumber, as it is not a defect according to National Hardwood Lumber Association grading standards.

There is a small sawmill company in Hunstville, Texas called M&H Sawmill if I recall correctly that many people in your area have spoken highly about. Small millers, but very reasonable pricing I am told.

It all boils down to what you consider "value". Many very good sources available on line for sure.


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## wabuckner

Already, well I sure do appreciate it. Thanks for the advice.


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## wabuckner

I wanted to say thank you to every one that responded to this thread, you've all given me a lot to consider and I really appreciate it.


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## ArlinEastman

I do like Cook Woods an have ordered from them, however, I get most of my wood from http://www.woodworkerssource.com/ . You can get very nice selections of wood from the US and International.
Plus if you click on LUMBER on the left side you can choose Craft Packs or Project Packs and it includes shipping.
Arlin


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## McKinneyMike

Recent comment about ordering from McKinney Hardwood Lumber from online forum

"Those of us who are in out-of-the-way places, and have no "real" lumber yard close by are often forced to buy lumber from online sources. I've purchased from Woodworker's Source in Arizona in the past, and with good results. Recently, I got wind of McKinney Hardwood Lumber, located in Texas, through a Web posting, and thought I'd give him a try.

The McKinney Web site doesn't provide for online ordering, but a phone call got things going. After a couple of phone calls and a couple of e-mails, my order was shipped (via freight to a local depot). I had explained what I was looking for, and they sent what I needed. So, I'd say the transaction was a success. So, I thought I'd pass along the experience to others in the hardwood-starved Southwest."

Ralph Barker
New Mexico


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## willd

I like Cooks Wood http://www.cookwoods.com/.Recently placed an ordered for Pua Rosa and fiddleback maple. I am very pleased with the quality.


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## Everett1

I like cr muterspaw for 4/4 domestic stock it's the most inexpensive I've found

Wall lumber is great for 8/4 stock and exotic

Both sites have 20bd ft bundles but most species end up cheaper from cr muterspaw after shipping

Wall lumbers 20bd ft packs include shipping in the price


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## Cato

+1 for Wall lumber. I am lucky as they are 20 miles from me, so its like going into a candy store.

Good people, down to earth and interested in making customers happy.


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## jonnytranscend

bellforest wood products or horizon wood are my top choices.


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## IuliaM

how about looking in the offers of a specialised website with a lot of wood buyers/ sellers and daily updated offers? I would suggest http://www.fordaq.com/, about 60.000 companies and a lot of timber , lumber offers. Good luck!


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## divemaster

Thanks for this site. Didn't know about it but find it very helpful


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