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How to buy hardwood

If you figure you need a board 1 1/2 by 5 1/2 by 96 inches long, or 2 by 6, 8 feet long, everyone will know that you are used to buying soft wood - construction lumber - sometimes called dimensional lumber. Soft wood is sold in standard sizes. Hardwood is normally sold in random widths and lengths. Some lumber yards will plane and/or sand it to your specifications (for an extra fee), and a few lumber yards have boards that are already surfaced on two sides (S2S). If you want it finished to a fixed size (S4S), it will cost you a fortune (they charge you for the larger board, charge you for planing it, charge you for trimming it, and discard the scrap). Therefore take your plans and go to your lumber yard of choice (take a pair of gloves to avoid slivers) so you can look for the pieces you need to build your project.

A board 1 1/2 x 5 1/2 x 96 would be called a 2 by 6 by 8 feet if it were soft wood, because the 2 by 6 dimension is the size of the board before it is planed smooth and straight. Hardwood is sold in "quarters" thickness, so that board would be 8 quarters thick. If you buy it rough cut, it would be just over two inches thick. If you asked the lumber yard to surface plane it (or bought the S2S version already planed/surfaced on two sides) it would probably be 1 1/2 inches thick. If you were carefully doing it yourself, you might get 1 3/4 finished thickness. But you might also have to buy "10 quarters" thick wood if you really must have 1 3/4 inch final thickness.

When buying hardwood, you pay for each piece, which is measured when you check out. The price of the wood is quoted in cost per board foot. For wood 4 quarters (one inch) or less thick, a board foot is a square foot. For 5 quarters wood (1 1/4 inch thick in rough form) multiply the square feet by 5/4 to get the number of board foot. Really wide and thick wood is slightly more per board foot, but a lot more per square foot. For example, Walnut is at least $5 per board foot, but 8/4 (2 inch thick) walnut is about $6.50 per board foot, or $13 per square foot. Walnut over 8-10 inches wide is also more expensive. Expect cherry to be about $6 for 4/4 and $7.50 for 8/4, so if the board mentioned above were needed in Cherry, and the lumber yard happened to have a piece exactly the right size, that cherry 2x6 would cost about $60. Since the board may be a little wider or longer, I often have paid $85 or more for such a board. (If my 2 x 6 were actually 2 x 7, I would use the "scrap" as a good piece of 1 x 2 cherry lumber.)

Be sure to know what you are looking for before you go. If you want Maple, do you want hard maple or soft maple or (probably not) quilted or birds eye maple? For oak, do you want Red Oak, White Oak, or Quarter Sawn White Oak? For your secondary (hidden) wood, consider poplar, soft maple, ash, or even the less-pretty pieces of your primary wood.

How much do you get

When lumber is first cut, green wood, it is larger than it will be after it is dried, and far larger than it will be after it is planed and straight-line ripped. When buying green wood from a lumber mill, the amount of wood you buy is called gross tally or green tally. Take that same batch of lumber from the mill, say 1000 board feet, and (depending on species) after it is dry, you measure and find you have 900 board feet. The 1000 board feet gross tally is now 900 board feet net tally or dry tally. Sometimes I call this rough measure since it is what the wood measures when it is still rough sawn but dry. And if you plane it, and make one side straight, the 1000 gross board feet from the tree is now only 800 board feet in your shop.

Some lumber yards estimate the original size of the boards you buy, when it was first cut, using the government standards for each species. When you measure what you bought, you may find you have 17-25% less lumber than you expected, because at some point the wood was that much larger. What the lumber yard is doing is legal. You order 100 board feet, pay for 100 board feet (gross tally), and when you measure what you got, you find 82 board feet. That unusually attractive price per board foot is because they are charging you for what the wood once was, rather than what it is today. It is the normal measure when you buy wholesale at the sawmill, but occasionally reaches the retail level - computing the size when the wood was green.

Some lumber yards buy their wood "dry measure" but then have most or all of their lumber planed and "straight line ripped" - one edge will be straight. When they are done, they only measure about 90% as much as they started with. If you order 100 board feet, and pay for 100 board feet (dry tally), and measure what you got, you may only find 90 board feet... corresponding to what you would have gotten if you bought rough lumber and milled it yourself. Those lumber yards don't charge much for the milling, but you only get 90% as much wood - the same 90% they got back from the mill, or an estimate of the wood in rough measure.

Still other lumber yards charge a higher price per board foot for skip planed and straight line ripped lumber, but charge you only for the wood actually received. I haven't heard an official name for this measure, but I will call it current tally or true measure, since it is what the wood currently is.

Which is legal? All are valid, honorable business approaches. Which is better? Whatever the lumber yard you like chooses to do. I have seen all three approaches in lumber yards in the Austin area. But none of the lumber yards say which way they measure... and all are defensive when you want to talk about it. I wish there were a simple universal answer, but I haven't found it. Or a requirement to advertise or post a sign that says "we sell green measure, or we sell by rough measure."

A few wood stores (largely mail order) are now selling "dimensional" hardwood by the linear inch, arguing that it is cheaper to buy just what you need. My only warning is to compute the price you will have to pay, per board foot, for this privilege. My examples have come out at least twice as expensive as a more traditional lumber purchase.