# Cheap lumber for practice (besides pine?)



## DustyCellist (Mar 19, 2014)

My local orange store doesn't have much variety. I have severe pine allergy and all they have is pine (and cedar, which I'm pretty sure is a pine…). They have oak and walnut, but only trim. I will check local lumber yards next hoping for cheap sloppy seconds to practice joinery, but what woods should I look for?

Poplar used to be cheap, but there must be a shortage… I live on 42 acres with plenty of maple, but I don't know how to mill it myself. There must be an answer!

Anyone know what "white wood" is? Orange store has 1"x kiln dried whitewood for cheap… Sound like pine?


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## thedude50 (Aug 13, 2011)

Poplar is still cheep here look for a new source


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## mojapitt (Dec 31, 2011)

Poplar is probably next. Do some shopping and wear a mask regardless. Higher grades of pine lumber are easily as expensive as many hardwoods.


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## NiteWalker (May 7, 2011)

Yep, poplar.

IIRC, "whitewood" is a generic big box term used for a few species (spruce, pine, etc.) of common characteristics.


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## woodchuckerNJ (Dec 4, 2013)

If you are alergic to pine, are you sure your not allergic to all woods?

Look in your newspaper in the back, look for guys selling wood, you'll find sawyers who also sell. Unless you live in a city.
I buy from a lumber mill, and from sawyers. My lumber yard is much more expensive since it's sold by the linear foot.

You'll have to surface it yourself.


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## bigblockyeti (Sep 9, 2013)

With 42 acres of maple, I would think you could work out something with someone who has a sawmill where you could get some wood for little more than your own labor and few missing trees. Slab wood could be another source as you can usually get a little more off what the mill is selling for firewood.


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## marcuscraft (Nov 14, 2012)

As others have mentioned, poplar is probably your best bet. Craigslist is another good place to look for lumber…oak seems to be dirt cheap in the places I have lived on Craigslist.


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## BinghamtonEd (Nov 30, 2011)

Do you have a jointer and planer? Or hand planes? There are often good deals to be had on hardwood on Craigslist, but the cheap stuff is usually rough. I just bought 100bf of rough cherry for $80 a couple weeks ago.

If not, my local hardwood place sells S4S poplar for less than the cost of pine. It's not as cheap as rough cut wood, but it's cheaper than HD's pine.


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## Purrmaster (Sep 1, 2012)

Don't get your lumber at Home Depot. The prices for their hardwoods are insane compared to a lumberyard or even a Woodcraft or Rockler.

Poplar is probably the overall cheapest hardwood you can get. If there's a surplus of a particular wood in your area you many find something else cheap.

You could also look at birch or aspen.

Whitewood is analogous to to SPF wood. Which stands for: sprue, pine, fir. Basically the most common softwoods. And probably the ones that will aggravate your allergies.

Even if you had the equipment and ability to mill your maple trees into boards you still have to dry the wood which will take a long time.

But in the longer term getting the maple trees milled may be a good idea. You an hire someone to come out there with a portable saw mill. Then air dry the lumber. You could end up with a lot of maple that ends up being much cheaper than store bought maple.


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## paxorion (Oct 19, 2012)

I've found that big box stores tend to charge more than 2x the price that I can find elsewhere for any non-construction lumber. In addition to CL, check out Woodfinder

Lumber costs are very much affected by locale and it would help to understand what locale you live in. If you have an abundance of other species of trees in your area, maybe some alternatives would be cheaper (e.g. soft maple?).


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## exterminate (Nov 6, 2012)

Beech is another alternative - Similar in hardness to Maple, but less expensive. In my area, its typically goes for the same, if not less than Poplar. Good Luck!


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## DustyCellist (Mar 19, 2014)

Thanks for the suggestions.

AFAIK, I am not allergic to other woods. As a cellist, I have differing levels of allergy to different rosins, but seem to be almost OK with English rosins (from the Scott's Pine), and smelling the inside of a (spruce top) cello mildly bothers my asthma, but guitars of all maple I think do not, whatever not-quite-mahogony used for ukulele's do not bother me either.

Ikea makes me ill, as does generally browsing Home Depot, though my house is from the 1850s and made from pine and I'm pretty OK here - maybe it's the wet pine?

Anyone here with allergies notice that it is more tolerable when it is drier?

I like the idea of Maple or Beech, but for just throw away practice joints, I feel like that would be prohibitively expensive (compared to a $5 1"x8"x8'...). Or I could wear a respirator when using hand tools… how unfortunate. If/when summer arrives here in the mid-atlantic, maybe I will acquire a work-mate and work pine outside…


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## jmartel (Jul 6, 2012)

If you have 42 acres of Maple, I would hire a local sawmill operator to come in and cut up 3 or 4 trees and give you enough lumber to last you for years.

Woodmizer has an area on their website that lists where local sawmill operators are.

https://www.woodmizer.com/us/ResourceCenter/FindaCustomSawyer.aspx

I'm sure you could get it done pretty cheaply, though it may be a few hundred dollars up front and you would have to wait a year for it to air dry. Maybe send some to a kiln to dry it so you will have it in a couple weeks instead.


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## LiveEdge (Dec 18, 2013)

I find it interesting that Ikea would bother you. Generally, for people with wood sensitivity, a chunk of wood sitting there isn't going to bother someone unless they handle it or there is dust in the air. One could speculate there is enough dust in HD to provoke symptoms, but I wouldn't think Ikea has a lot. You have likely hit on the link with rosin being a common sensitizer (I assume you found this out with your playing). I have a similar sensitivity and speculate it is rosin. I currently have a rash from working with some juniper this weekend. Doh!


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## HerbC (Jul 28, 2010)

Just to clarify one thing, none of the "cedars" are a member of the pine family…

Herb


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## DustyCellist (Mar 19, 2014)

Yeah, rosin application (rubbing the bow against a brick of sap…) and sometimes the beginning of playing (when lose rosin dust flies off the bow hairs) is when I get respiratory symptoms.

IKEA upstairs store doesn't bother me at all, it's the "warehouse" part where you pull your own boxes onto flat carts right before checkout. That's the part of IKEA that gets me.

I'm thinking now that maybe any wood that is heavy with sap would be a problem for me - and I assume that pine has more sap (that "lovely pine scent" everyone loves…) than other woods? Maybe I need to find the least "fragrant" wood to work…

What smells like nothing?

EDIT:

HerbC: I just looked it up. "Red Cedar" which is actually a juniper, is a conifer, but you are correct, not Pinaceae. True cedars (of lebanon, etc) are of the genus Cedrus (commonly referred to as "Cedar") which is a genus of coniferous trees in the plant family Pinaceae.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedrus

It is likely that the chemical in pine that some people are sensitive to is also found in juniper (I have severe allergic reactions to gin these days), as well as harder melons and sometimes even banana and kiwi. Most people with allergy to melons are actually allergic to pine but there are some chemicals in some melons that "trick" the body's immune system into believing it is pine. This is what I have learned from conversations with my doctor and other health professionals.


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## dawsonbob (Aug 5, 2013)

"What smells like nothing?"

Nothing. Nothing smells exactly like nothing. Can't cut dovetails in it though.


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## jmartel (Jul 6, 2012)

Well you could, but you'd end up with large gaps.


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## DustyCellist (Mar 19, 2014)

Gaps won't matter, you won't even see them.


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## dawsonbob (Aug 5, 2013)

You could fix the gaps in nothing flat, I'll bet.


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## Tim457 (Jan 11, 2013)

Dusty that $5 1"x8"x8' is 5.33 board feet if you give it the full 1" of nominal thickness (which it isn't). That makes a dollar a board foot, which you should be able to beat if you have a sawyer mill some stuff up for you. Not too rarely I see hardwoods like maple and oak around me for about $1 a board foot on CL and pine or poplar for a little less. I'm assuming these aren't high grade woods, but they will be much better than that "whitewood" stuff except they will be rough sawn.

Hand planing rough sawn lumber might be a bit much for your asthma, so getting a planer or jointer if you don't have one might be a good idea. Not to mention the time involved and whether you would enjoy it or not.


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## eatsawdust (Mar 16, 2012)

find a few pallets for practice there are a lot of ash pallets out there, and even some exotics if the pallet originated overseas


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## Purrmaster (Sep 1, 2012)

I too am surprised that Ikea would get to you, even their warehouse area. Most of their stuff is painted or finished with lacquer. Though they do have a few items made of unfinished pine. But I'd think it would be boxed up.

It sounds like most of the "smelly" woods like pine and cedar are going to bug you. Thankfully most domestic hardwoods don't have a scent to them.


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## rustfever (May 3, 2009)

Try Alder. Here on the left coast, it is one of the least expensive of woods. Much less than some of the better grades of pine.


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## SCOTSMAN (Aug 1, 2008)

I think if the USA is as here then white wood refers to white pine as cheap as they come.If you do buy pine ,for practicing joints etc then look for knot free wood


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## DustyCellist (Mar 19, 2014)

Alder sounds lovely - I plan to move left in the next couple of years. Not enough vitamin D in the mid atlantic.

While I was checking Lowe's today (left card at home to prevent me from spending…) I checked for alternatives, and they have in 1" (3/4 I guess?) poplar and aspen at around the same price (aspen a touch cheaper) and oak. I put my nose to the aspen and poplar and had no respiratory effects (if I do that with pine I reach for my inhaler immediately), so I'm assuming if I saw into it I will be ok! Of course it costs 4x the whitewood (which I have used in the past and maintain is fine for getting started, when you want to make 4 or 400 dovetail joints and throw them away I mean).

I guess I'll call lumber yards and mills, but I don't know how to find a sawyer locally (I checked the online lists, nobody near me shows up on any of them). I guess a 1×6x8 for $18 could make a few keepsake boxes…

If I look for pallets, how can I tell if it's pine or ash? When greyed, the grain looks similar to me…


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## JayT (May 6, 2012)

Any chance you would let us know a little more specifically what area you live in? There are probably other LJ's in your area that would know of some sawyers.


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## DustyCellist (Mar 19, 2014)

I'm by Ft Washington, PA

I'm suddenly looking at wood-mizers and realizing that all I need is a good respirator and a few grand in cash!...


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## HorizontalMike (Jun 3, 2010)

It sure as hxxxx would be nice to know what corner of the WORLD you are located, since you are seeking advice.

Just exit your tent, turn right and proceed to the group of trees to your left, and then move yonder until you pass the river, and then you will find what you need. Oh yeah, return to your hut and retrieve the ax, as you will need that too.


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## DustyCellist (Mar 19, 2014)

Sorry, I assumed people knew what "Mid-Atlantic" was, I forget sometimes that the internet is global -_-'

Southeastern Pennsylvania, USA. Outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. (In North America)


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## JayT (May 6, 2012)

Thanks, to us hicks in the Great Plains, Mid-Atlantic means anything from Virginia to Jersey. It wouldn't do you much good to recommend someone in southern VA.

I know there are LJ's in the Philadelphia area, hopefully one will see and chime in with recommendations for a sawyer or a good lumberyard close to you.

At least you have trees, try finding local hardwood in central Kansas.


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

Perhaps try some pallet wood - - since it is available free, is often ash or oak, and is ideal for practice.


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