Where to buy quality wood in Oklahoma or Online
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- This topic has 7 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 5 months ago by George Fulford.
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31 October 2014 at 4:20 pm #120382
Hello all,
I’m a beginner wood worker and have been following along with several of the project series using wood from Lowes. I can’t help but think that the quality of wood is lacking, but I have no basis for this as I’ve never worked with anything else.
I would love to actually work with some quality lumber and I am open to suggestions on where I should go about getting it.
I have done some searching for local sawmills and specialty wood providers in my area, but wanted to get others opinions before I pull the trigger.
Thanks for you help.
@wampus1972 – do you have any hardwood lumber dealers in your area? The HomeDepots of the world will usually only sell planed lumber and building lumber with a small selection of hardwoods, here it’s usually red oak and maple. What you are buying has already been dressed and squared (planed and squared on all sides). Hardwood lumber suppliers usually are going to sell rough sawn or skip dressed lumber. Rough means it’s right off the chainsaw, skip dressed means they’ve passed the board through a planer enough for you to see the grain of the wood. You will buy the wood on a volume basis, by the board foot (1 inch x 12 inches x 12 inches or 144 cu. inch) where the HomeDepot is usually sold per board. Rough and skip dressed lumber requires you to do a lot of preparation to the wood, you need to square it and flatten it and depending on the wood this can be easy or it can be difficult. You will definitely get better wood going rough and skip dressed. The Home Depot pine and spruce is inexpensive compared to the hardwoods obtained through specialty dealers and has the advantage of being readily available, inexpensive and easy to work which perfect for someone starting out in wood working using hand tools.
I live near OKC, and I’ll tell you it’s tough to find quality hardwood lumber here. I watch Craigslist like a hawk and keep some cash handy, but sometimes I still get beat to the wood. Woodcraft in OKC and Tulsa have some nice, but pricey wood. I occasionally travel to the upper midwest in my truck and always try to bring some wood back when I come. There is a sawmill near Guthrie that used to advertise on CL, but I haven’t seen them in a while. Good luck.
5 November 2014 at 3:21 pm #120577Thanks for the replies. I’ve done some digging and found a place called McKinley Wholesale Lumber that may fit the bill, but I’ll have to make a trip over there one day and check them out.
6 November 2014 at 7:06 pm #120668I’ve bought wood from Bell forest products too…and very good service. I wanted some padauk for a project, and had it milled to specific dimensions. It was beautiful wood, cut exactly how I wanted, and shipped promptly. Not cheap, but not exorbitantly expensive, either. There are *tons* of online dealers who will ship wood. just dig around the net a bit, and check out woodfinder.com, too–search a type of wood and they will show you a list of dealers.
18 November 2014 at 5:15 am #121078I keep my eye out behind businesses and warehouses for pallets. Most of the time I find they are willing to let me have them for free. They’re mostly made of pine and oak, but sometimes I find really nice stuff like sycamore and mesquite in all different sizes and thicknesses. The only thing is that you have to break all the pallets apart and process the wood yourself which can be tricky if you leave a nail or staple unnoticed. 🙂
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