Buying a lumber can be quite costly sometimes so it is best if you buy it straight from the source and while it is still green. However if you purchase the lumber while it is still fresh means it can't be used for a while. Your alternatives are to buy dried and dimensioned lumber from distributors or places like Home Depot. These paths are great if your wallet is thick, and you need the boards immediately. I prefer to go with rough cut and prepare it myself.

As soon as you have decided a the project you want to do and the kind of lumber you need, the next step is getting your materials. If you go directly to a sawmill they will let you go around pick your choice of lumber. But remember this, "green lumber will shrink while drying!" So make sure you pick stock that is a little over sized.It will not be necessary to haggle the price of the lumber since the prices here are already discounted but if you are frequent customer they might give you better deal

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Drying the lumber will be the next thing you would want to do after bringing it home. One of the ways to dry your green lumber is by piling the lumbers under the sun but making sure that it is protected from the rain you have to also make sure that every layer is 12"-24" apart For each 1" thick lumber , it will take you a year to dry so if you have 2" thick it will take 2 years 3" 3 years and so on. After they air-dry the moisture content will be around 12%-18%, this is still to wet to work with, so now you can bring the lumber inside your shop to finish drying.The ideal RH of your shop should b 50% for the lumber to dry down to 8% moisture and for you to be able to monitor the humidity you can purchase the rmometer/hygrometer from radio shack that will cost you around $40

One other method for drying a green lumber is by the use of solar kiln . There are a lot of solar kiln plans online. The set back if you want to have it built is around $200. When you bring your lumber home you can immediately put your lumber in the solar kiln and begin drying. To dry the lumbers you need to leave it inside the kiln for approximately 1-2 months for it to be ready for use. However it will often times depend on your location, the season and etc.

You can start processing the lumber as soon as its dried up. The very first thing you must do is joint one face of the plank. You can do this by hand by using a hand plane or the easy approach with a jointer. Cutting the board to your desired length is advised. And in order for you to have a uniform thickness you may now run through a thickness planer. This process will make the board equal in thickness. Once you plane the panel down to the final thickness, you then joint one side perhaps manually or by using a jointer. Cutting the board to the final width is the next process after you have planed the it to your desired thickness. You can use any kind of saw to do this. Using the jointed for reference you can now set your board to your desired width. You now have a board almost ready for your project, just cut the final length needed and build your project. Processing the rough boards yourself can really save you a lot of money than purchasing the ready made one from your home improvements shops