Bring the wood dealer to you
Brian tried out some online wood suppliers and reported back on how everything turned out. He didn’t identify his NSY affiliation, so he didn’t get preferential treatment. Plus, he bought the wood on his own dime, so he’d be free to criticize them if things didn’t work out. –dan
I love to wander through a building full of lumber. It’s great to poke around the stacks and discover that one spectacular piece with the burl inclusion and a bit of crossgrain ripple that just screams “jewelry box!” in a voice that only you can hear. Unfortunately, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area where you pay premium prices for wood and ususally have a lousy selection. When it came time to stock my new shop with some lumber I found that local supplies just didn’t have what I wanted, especially at a price I was willing to pay.
I’d never really taken mail order wood seriously. It always seemed like a silly and expensive thing to try to ship a good chunk of a tree cross-country, sight unseen, in hopes of getting something workable. Once I started looking into it, however, I found that I could easily beat the local prices–even after shipping–and have a much broader range of wood to pick from. I was still nervous about the quality, but I was frustrated enough with the locals to take the risk. I’ve received three orders so far from two different suppliers and am very happy with the results and learned a few things along the way.
Most dealers sell only rough or surfaced two sides (S2S) by default, so make sure you know what you are ordering when you try a new supplier. Surfaced S2S lumber has been planed on both faces already, so it arrives about 3/16th thinner than the rough dimension with a surface ready to work. For example, S2S 4/4 lumber is actually about 13/16th thick. The upside of this is that it saves you some planing; the down side is that if the wood changes shape during shipping (and it will) you won’t be able to plane it flat again. Also, the boards won’t be planed to exactly the same thickness, so you’ll either have to shave a bit off of each one or amend your design to deal with the variable thickness.
Shipping also gets interesting. For small orders UPS or FedEx Ground are the best deal, but the length and weight of a package is limited to 70 lbs and 72 inches. Once you hit 200 lbs, truck freight becomes the best deal and length is not limited. From 70 lbs to 200 lbs is a shipping no-man’s-land where the best deal varies for different orders. Most dealers are very familiar with the shipping systems and can give you an idea how best to ship your order.
There are a bunch of different dealers out there offering wood for sale. Many of them specialize in particular types of wood such as highly figured woods, regional woods, or even a single species. There is a short list of dealer’s I’ve located that have good reputations, however I’ve only tried two of them so far. I was happy with both of them and will continue to buy from both of them.
I still wish I had a good local supplier. If you’re lucky enough to have one, be sure to support them as there is no better friend when you need to find those matched boards for a table top. If you can’t get what you need locally though, remember that there are many good dealers who are happy to bring the wood you want right to your door step. So give it a try and be sure to let them know that Nothing Severed Yet sent you.
New England Specialty Lumber Supply was the first order I placed for 25bf of 4/4 curly maple. NESL is a newcomer to the wood-by-mail trade and a small operation. I decided to try them out because they had some incredible prices when they first started out. Typical of small operations, they did not accept credit cards – only checks and money orders. They were also a bit slow on the turn around and it took two shipments, but when the wood arrived I was very pleased. The wood was good quality with nice figure and arrived rough at 1 inch. Also typical of small operations, the owner, Joe Roberts, was friendly and happy to answer my questions before I ordered. When a problem arose with the first shipment (it contained 25 linear feet instead of 25 board feet), an email to Joe was all it took to get the rest of the order shipped out.
Overall, NESS was a great experience, and I’d happily work with them again.
Dan interrupting–by sheer coincidence, I’m in the middle of negotiating a purchase of 300 bf of mixed exotics from NESL right now. I was delighted to get Brians review and hear that I’m working with good people. I’ll post here as soon as the shipment arrives and update you on how it turns out! –dan
The second and third orders I placed were with Woodworker’s Source out of Arizona. WWS is a big time operation with a great website and lots of selection. They seem to have a monthly sale, and I caught it during a North American Hardwoods sale. I first ordered 20bf of 4/4 cherry and later 20bf each of 4/4 hard maple and 8/4 poplar. Both orders shipped out quickly and arrived in good condition. The quality of the cherry and maple were much better than I expected and the poplar was nice as well. All wood from WWS is surfaced two sides.
I’ve researched some other sites as well. Although I haven’t ordered from them, the following all have excellent reputations:
Curly Woods – Specializes in figured wood
Niagara Lumber General hardwoods. Prices include shipping.
West Penn Hardwoods Wide range of hardwoods including exotics
Steve Wall Lumber Co. – North American hardwoods
Brian Todoroff
Contributing Editor
NothingSeveredYet.com
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