Do you buy lumber S2S?

[Jon Grider]

Jointing and planing lumber to final thickness is not one of my most favorite shop routines. I've always bought rough sawn lumber, but this AM while feeding several dozen bf of hard maple and cherry into the planer I started considering buying preplaned hardwoods and saving my back, arms and ears [yes I do wear earmuffs] for more pleasant pursuits. Questions for those who do buy preplaned lumber: 1] Does the lumber you buy come flattened on a jointer before being planed or just run through a planer? 2] What kind of a cost premium per bf are you paying for that service? Do you find storing and/or handling planed lumber problematic as far as getting dents and dings in the lumber? Just wondering. I'm thinking that the time savings may pay for the extra processing charge.

[glenn bradley]

It will be interesting to see the replies. I have never bought S2S that was usable for anything like furniture without additional attention. I would say your best bet is to buy a small quantity of wood that is S2S, make a wall cabinet with a drawer and door and see how it goes. Believe me, if buying prepared lumber removed the requirement of me milling I would have gone that way long ago ;-) I do buy it skip planed with one edge ripped.

[Ron Selzer]

I like to buy skip planed to 15/16". I believe this gives me a better look at the grain, an idea of how bad the board will warp and twist and saves hauling a lot of chips out of the basement.
Hobby shop, I do enjoy running lumber thru the planer. Just don't see the need to start off with rough sawn all the time. Used to, not very often now. Also I am not buying top grade as wife and kids demand knots and other imperfections to be shown prominently.
Ron

[George Bokros]

I have taken to doing like Ron does for the same reasons plus less work to flatten one face on the jointer. My source is also closer to me than where I was purchasing rough.

[Mel Fulks]

I have used it occasionaly in employments,but I don't like that method. With things like panels ,especialy when some
will be short , I cut to needed rough lengths where a bow changes lengthwise from convex to concave,making sure that Im not wasting anything. You should be able to sight and tell what lengths you will be able to get perfectly straight and free
of twist. Then after milling you have options as to where to cut for good grain match.

[Mark Bolton]

Search the archives. Beaten to death. Your a smart man. The price you pay to someone else (the mill) to bulk off those chips, handle those chips, and get you one straight edge, is money in the bank. We bring everything in S3S oversized. It lets the mill who has the capacity to efficiently handle the chips and feed them back into the boiler that dries the material, handle those chips. When it comes to your shop they are wasted, burned for nothing, or set out for the trash man to fill up the landfill. Bring in oversized or skip planed lets you still have a view of the figure and color to do in-house sorting/matching if needed and leaves you more than enough room to flatten if needed. If a job comes up where you have to work with totally wild low grade material you have to stick with rough.

There is no way in even in a modestly serious small shop operation that its smart to beat your machines, your knives, your body, your electric bill, to death handling those chips unless you just love it. Its lost dollars.

[Mel Fulks]

Sure ,Mark that is right. But today everything is called "high end" that translates to "standard stuff". I've had employers
tell me that some customers were so picky they had to really be careful. That's when I got to do all the panels. I remember one telling me the lady was pleased with her cabinets that she was in tears while running around like a
chased chicken "they are SO beautiful !" The way to get REAL high end is knowing what it is and accepting those jobs only
when you are sure you can deliver high end and get paid for it. I did an old heart pine breakfast room paneling for a
house that was 5 million in 1980. We bought lots of it . Some of the panels had pieces in them 3 or 4 inches wide ,but
they were matched with all rift and quarter sawn pieces matched for color. Not "toned".

[Mark Bolton]

matched with all rift and quarter sawn pieces matched for color. Not "toned".

Sure Mel, No doubt. But as a I mentioned, skipped, way over final thickness, STILL allows you miles of room to achieve some boutique drama finish on your part, enough thickness for reading grain, color, or any other form of voodoo magic that needs to happen to satisfy the job.

The point is, bulk handling of chips is nothing but a waste. Bark, saw kerf, wain, its all just drama. its going to be removed anyway. So as long as you bring your material in with enough room for whatever drama is required, let someone else handle those chips more efficiently AND hopefully put them to further use as opposed to simply winding up in a plastic trash bag (more plastic) at the foot of someones driveway, because they have some goofball notion that thats supposed to be part of the process. Its waste. Its anyones right to waste, but its waste. And its lost dollars which is what seems to be what the OP is getting at.

When we are in a rush and have to pull in a pack of dead rough because the mill doesnt have time to surface and straightline??? IT SUCKS BEYOND SUCK.. the chips, the off-falls, the time spend emptying the DC? Its a LOSER...

Even if I were doing boutique work I would bring my material in skipped with one straight edge unless I needed slabs.

The point is, handling chips is lost time and money no matter how you slice it. If you dont have to account for that.. good for you....

Sounds like the OP is doing a little smart math to me

[Mel Fulks]

I guess some of my dislike is conditioned from s2s coming in with too much removed ....and exposing rocks! Then I know
the "new guy " in the office did the buying...from a "friend".

[Mark Bolton]

I guess some of my dislike is conditioned from s2s coming in with too much removed ....and exposing rocks! Then I know
the "new guy " in the office did the buying...from a "friend".

If I ever got a rock in my material I would be dead shocked. Talking a mill that blades cost thousands. The logs they process have no rocks. Now maybe an uber odd slab yard sawing thick wide insane buggy, crotch inclusions, well then they know what they are in for and your going to be paying $5k for some termite eaten slab thats been pressure washed, sawn (multiple blades), RF dride to 8%, and loaded on a truck F.O.B. after cash payment.

Ive never, ever, gotten a rouge/ratty piece of material from any of 4 mills I have bought from. A rock would be a mile marker.

[Andrew Seemann]

I also hate processing rough lumber. I'm only a hobbyist, but even I think it is a waste of my time, back, and blades. I'm fine with doing a few dozen board feet, but for anything major I just have the lumber yard do it. The last batch I had them do was 150 bdft of cherry.

I get S2S with a straight line rip. I think it is only something like $36 for up to 180 bdft. In my mind that is basically free, especially if it saves me a few hours of my limited shop time. I have it planed oversize between a sixteenth and an eighth, so I can plane to final thickness. Sometimes I will run the SLR1E across the jointer as well, especially if it has been a while since it was ripped, sometimes you get some movement after a month or so. Either way, it is still much easier, you are only removing a few 32nds, rather than trying to straighten a half inch bow over 8 feet.

Plus honestly, the monster two sided Oliver they use does a better job from dead rough than my puny 8" jointer and 15" planer.

[Andrew Hughes]

I like facing and planing lumber. I buy both rough and pre planed boards. I’m a woodworking artist so I don’t think about money. Because if your worried about how much something cost or how long it takes your not making art.

[Jim Matthews]

I'm with Andrew Seeman.

Time is something I can't replace.

[Jim Becker]

I almost never buy pre surfaced lumber for woodworking, the exception being that my supplier of soft maple sells it skip planed, but there's no price disadvantage. The only pre-surfaced stuff I ever use is one-by stuff for construction/renovation purposes.

[Mark Bolton]

I like facing and planing lumber. I buy both rough and pre planed boards. I’m a woodworking artist so I don’t think about money. Because if your worried about how much something cost or how long it takes your not making art.

That's all well and good if the work you have access to, your retirement portfolio, your lifestyle, or your wife's blind acceptance of your pursuits, allows you that fortune. Unfortunatly many of the rest of us, art or otherwise, have to account for the actual dollars in and out of our shop. My accountant keeps me pretty clear on that and moreso that I'm personally not willing to work for a dollar an hour.

If you have the luxury of building bespoke work that generates a serious income weekly from your shop (a one man shop would eat 1500 a week on paper easy) I'm happy for you. I cant find a way to be profitable packing chips. I need to be in the real work.

[Mel Fulks]

Interesting how suppliers vary. We used to use a well known big outfit that had low price ,but it always had rocks and
staples. And often stuff was a bit thin. Then found Lumber Sales. They buy stuff from good same bunch always. Poplar
came from a Menonite mill and 4/4 was usually at least 1 and 1/16th. Price was not much higher.

[Jon Grider]

That's all well and good if the work you have access to, your retirement portfolio, your lifestyle, or your wife's blind acceptance of your pursuits, allows you that fortune. Unfortunatly many of the rest of us, art or otherwise, have to account for the actual dollars in and out of our shop. My accountant keeps me pretty clear on that and moreso that I'm personally not willing to work for a dollar an hour.

If you have the luxury of building bespoke work that generates a serious income weekly from your shop (a one man shop would eat 1500 a week on paper easy) I'm happy for you. I cant find a way to be profitable packing chips. I need to be in the real work.

Mark's post pretty much describes where I'm at. I get zero pleasure in feeding boards into a screaming monster, I do not like disposing dust and chips and the horse farm I used to give my chips to no longer has horses so now I have to pay to have them hauled away. Most importantly though, the process takes way too much time better spent on actual woodworking . Thicknessing boards would be a task I would delegate to a grunt employee if I had one. I'm not dependent on my woodworking for a living, but woodworking has provided a side hustle income for several decades and to be worthwhile, I have to be efficient. I think I like the rational for skip planing. The grain becomes apparent but damage to boards should not be a big issue. Skip planing could cut the time jointing and planing considerably, but the some of the muscle work is still there and disposal of chips is still a factor as well, but less so. I'm assuming skip planing is cheaper than finish planing, I'll have to call my suppliers to get their input. Well, thanks all who gave input one way or the other. And thanks for tolerating my rambling thought process. As you can see I'm looking for a solution to a problem. Any others here have their lumber finish planed when purchased or is rough or skip planed your preferred purchase? Input appreciated.

[Andrew Hughes]

That's all well and good if the work you have access to, your retirement portfolio, your lifestyle, or your wife's blind acceptance of your pursuits, allows you that fortune. Unfortunatly many of the rest of us, art or otherwise, have to account for the actual dollars in and out of our shop. My accountant keeps me pretty clear on that and moreso that I'm personally not willing to work for a dollar an hour.

If you have the luxury of building bespoke work that generates a serious income weekly from your shop (a one man shop would eat 1500 a week on paper easy) I'm happy for you. I cant find a way to be profitable packing chips. I need to be in the real work.

Mark you sound grumpy like your stuck in your Cabinet making job. I understand how difficult it is to make money in the trades today. A Cabinet shop probably one of the hardest.
Maybe when you retire one day you’ll appreciate working with wood in different way with less pressure.
Good Luck

[Andrew Seemann]

Skip planing, also called hit and miss, is where you don't care if you plane out all the saw marks. When I was making bevel siding for my previous house, I had white pine planed to 7/8" That resulted in skip planing. I didn't care, because I needed the 7/8" dimension and and I was going to finish plane a beveled rip cut, and the skip planed side would end up on the back of this siding. When I was doing the siding, I also had them rip to width. It saved me at hours and hours of ripping thousands of feet of white pine to 3 1/4. In case you haven't ripped a lot of white pine, after a while the resin content makes it absolutely miserable.

I have had wood planed to final dimension by the lumber yard also. I needed a bunch of red oak at 3/4" for interior trim. It wasn't exactly fine cabinet work, and the planed finish was good enough (and remarkably similar to the original I was replacing). I also had a bunch of that ripped to width as well.

From a practical/cost perspective, there really isn't a difference between having the yard "skip" plane, oversize plane, or final thickness plane; it just depends on what thickness you request. I normally have them go past skip planing but over final dimension, like getting 4/4 stock at 13/16" That way I can still have control over the final thickness and surface quality, but I only need to run it through the planer once or twice.

One thing I have noticed recently, is that more and more lumber is coming from the mill itself with a skip planing. I have wondered if this is to allow easier and/or more cost effective stacking and shipping.

[Jim Matthews]

I almost never buy pre surfaced lumber for woodworking, the exception being that my supplier of soft maple sells it skip planed, but there's no price disadvantage. The only pre-surfaced stuff I ever use is one-by stuff for construction/renovation purposes.

Would you follow this approach, as a casual woodworker? Some of my wider Walnut boards at 6 quarters weigh near 100 pounds.

Working around big stock in a small space is a chore.

[roger wiegand]

If I could buy skip planed wood I would; none of the hardwood suppliers within 100 miles of me offer it as an option. There's a big wholesale yard that won't sell to me as an individual, they might offer it, but I can't buy by the pallet. So it's either rough or fully surfaced. The fully surfaced wood is almost never flat or straight, so I'd need to pay for 5/4 at least to end up with 3/4" boards and do almost as much work.

[Lee Schierer]

I'm fortunate, there are two hardwood suppliers that I deal with they both supply S4S hardwood and moldings to the local contractors, but they also sell retail. Here is their current price list:
438960
All their lumber is kiln dried to 7% and in the 30+ years I've been dealing with them I can recall only one piece of lumber purchased from them that had any problem with warping, twisting, cupping or reaction when cut.

[Jim Becker]

Would you follow this approach, as a casual woodworker? Some of my wider Walnut boards at 6 quarters weigh near 100 pounds.

Working around big stock in a small space is a chore.

I can't answer that question as it's hard for me to put myself into "casual woodworker" mindset. Woodworking is more of an art pursuit for me like Andrew mentioned up above somewhere. I just plain prefer taking a raw board from the start and I prefer the control that milling it from rough brings in that pursuit. S4S certainly has its place, especially for folks who are not able or not desirous of dealing with rough lumber. There's nothing wrong with it at all. There certainly can be some inconsistencies in thickness, etc., so one has to be careful shopping. But that's the case with rough, too, honestly.

Working "big things" can be and is a challenge relative to space. I occasionally get the privilege of working with big slabs, etc., and if they exceed a certain size, I'm at least thankful that one of my local suppliers can handle surfacing if I need that and they don't charge much for the effort, either. For more "regular sized" projects I break down long boards before I even start processing them, other than occasionally skimming a board to make sure I understand what I have for grain and color. I try to take great care relative to grain and color when selecting material for a given project, regardless of its nature or source.

I do understand that S4S is very much a part of many commercial concerns, too, as it can save time and we all know the saying about that. It can work well if they have a good supplier that they can trust to provide good consistency and that's whether it's final dimension stock or "proud of final" that they still lightly process for thickness and edges on their own equipment.

[Michael Drew]

For what it's worth.....

I only get S3S, because that's the only hardwood available where I live...... I still end up feeding it through a planer to get thickness of boards used consistent. I also run them across my jointer as well, before they go across the table saw. They are never perfectly straight from the supplier.

[Bob Hinden]

I like to mill it myself because it gives me control over the final thickness. I am not limited to what I can buy S2S, and I can ensure that all of the boards are the same thickness.

[Mark Bolton]

I'm assuming skip planing is cheaper than finish planing, I'll have to call my suppliers to get their input. Well, thanks all who gave input one way or the other. And thanks for tolerating my rambling thought process. As you can see I'm looking for a solution to a problem. Any others here have their lumber finish planed when purchased or is rough or skip planed your preferred purchase? Input appreciated.

In my area at least there is no option for "finish" planed period other than the home center which I think is what the majority of people think of when they think of getting your material pre-surfaced. Thats not at all what I consider bringing material in surfaced. That material is dead on .750" and width, sharp corners, and finish dressed all sides. Too much risk for dents, scratches, scuffs, and so on and then youll be left undersized (if your target is .750") after cleaning it up. The surfacing from our mill will sometimes be better far than what comes off our planer and sometimes a good bit less so. I guess it depends on where you land in the sharpening schedule on their machine though they of course run onboard sharpening. Regardless, at least they peel off the bulk of the material to whatever your spec' is. Some material we bring in at 13/16", some 7/8, some 15/16". 15/16" is pretty much skipped for us though if we do bring in dead rough our mill saws everything a little plump so its not uncommon to be able to get clean at an inch which is more reason to have them deal with the nearly 3/8" of material that has to come off. At 15/16" there will still be some slight random saw marks but pretty much all the rough is gone. One edge is straight line ripped so they are straight but with pretty heavy saw marks, dead rough on the other side. That at least lets them handle one drop. And again, here, it all gets fed into a grinder and then into their boilers for the kilns so at least its not in the landfill. For me 7/8" and 13/16" are the most common because I like thick face frames and doors so after going through the sander the 7/8" material lands at a plump 13/16" and done. It never sees the planer in the shop.

We are in the same boat as you, small shop, so efficiency is paramount, as well as saving my body wherever possible. Beyond just unloading all that cellulose and lignin that will simply wind up in the dumpster, breaking down from dead rough is a lot of muscle, a lot of mess, and a lot of cost in time, knives, electricity, and right on down the line. Its great if you just enjoy it and dont have to account for your time and expenses. The real bonus to the pre-surfaced to me is every board that comes out of the pack goes straight to work. There is little to no culling, grading, sorting out knots and defect. But thats also in part because again, due to small shop and efficiency, I brining in mostly FAS but some #1 common so its all high grade material to start with because I dont hae the ability to grade and defect efficiently or store all the low grade that gets culled out.

[Mark Bolton]

Mark you sound grumpy like your stuck in your Cabinet making job. I understand how difficult it is to make money in the trades today. A Cabinet shop probably one of the hardest.
Maybe when you retire one day you’ll appreciate working with wood in different way with less pressure.
Good Luck

I would be lying if I said I wasnt grumpy but Im not really grumpy :D

The issue is that everyone has to quantify, even if only a little, their time/expense/overhead, whether its a hobby or not. Its not to say you have to run a hobby like a regimented factory but there is still some accounting for time and effort. If not by the individual, I'd guess their spouse would be happy to provide a little productivity accounting if asked :p. Then there is the mile of other issues with "do you buy your material surfaced".. some pull from custom sawyers, juicy cuts, no surfacing offered. Some buy in small lots so surfacing isnt an option or the minimum price for surfacing seems to high. All reasonable situations to be stuck having to slog that work out yourself. But the numbers thrown around here, and what I know I pay for surfacing, are incapable of being met in any small shop. Its simply not possible. So if you do it for the love of that process, thats fine. But lets not wrastle around that its cheaper, or better, or allows you to read the grain, or sorting and matching, thats all hogwash. You can sort and match any board other than a gnarly twisted nightmare that barely leaves you enough final thickness to work with, if its pre-surfaced and youll be that much closer to "woodworking" as opposed to "lumber processing".

Its been beat to death here a million times. Surfacing material from dead rough is brute work, prior post called it grunt work. I tend to see it as ridiculously expensive grunt work.

[Mark Bolton]

staples

The bane of my existence.... should be outlawed.

[Randy Heinemann]

Didn't read the other replies . . . I buy rough sawn or slightly planed (not S2S) hardwood because it allows for slight wood movement after it gets to my shop and I still have flexibility to get a full 3/4" or most often even 7/8" for my projects. The place I buy from has great hardwood, dried to a good moisture content for the area I live in, and planes it to 15/16" to give the buyer some look at the grain. I do pay more for the wood from this place, but it's worth it. There is less waste. I don't have to worry about moisture content and movement before cutting, and it requires less time planing. I don't know if it would be economical though if you are a professional who uses a large volume of wood. I'm not.

After the lumber gets to my shop and acclimates, there is generally at least a little movement. If the lumber is already S2S, it's OK as long as there is sufficient thickness to allow some final planing and jointing to get whatever size you require. For example, I buy lumber that has been planed to about 15/16". It helps for me to see the grain while buying and cuts my planing time down a little. This still can be a little bit of a problem if you are trying to get 7/8" from it if there is any cupping or twisting. The place I buy from, though, sells wood that is dried to a perfect moisture content for our area and there is rarely significant movement once it gets to my shop. Having it to at least 15/16" gives me flexib

[Mel Fulks]

For shops that employ kids ,all of whom are only thinking of girls, weed,and cars. Jointer facing IS a bad idea ! And
THEY can even find a way to get hurt on the planer!

[J.R. Rutter]

Hit and Missed (AKA Skip Planed) to 15/16" for 4/4 material. Farmer down the road empties my collector and hauls the chips. I do have to bundle the offall strips from ripping edges, but the actual ripping is fast and easy with my saw.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I 100% agree with Mark. There is no bigger waste of my shops time than running a planer. It's expensive on my machines, takes a LOT of man hours and is just plain no fun. When I empty chips and dust, it also fills the dumpster which then sits full for a few days until the truck shows up. For me to run a couple 100 bf of something rough to S2S and a straight line rip will take a couple hours plus machine cost. Just off the bill from my supplier for yesterday's shipment;

8/4 red oak FAS/1F, 102 BF = $371.51 (3.64/bf)
S2S/SLR1E, 102BF = $20.40 ($.20/bf)

That's ridiculously cheap milling costs compared to my actual costs to do it myself, I can't come close. They also use a really nice Weinig machine that probably costs more than all of my tools combined, and the results are generally fantastic. Oh, that's delivered 100 miles to my shop on their semi cost. This lot was supposed to be a trestle for a peninsula which we could have had completely cut and ready for sanding in the time it saved by having them mill. I say supposed to because the customer changed their mind after the truck shipped. Love customers.

[Stan Calow]

If you're a hobbyist, you have to decide which you have more of - time or money. If I have only X hours a week to work in the shop, I'd rather buy wood thats already been partially processed, to maximize time making things. Rough cut material can also be harder to find in small quantities. Its different for a pro.

[Curt Harms]

rough or S2S? The answer I think is .... it depends. I work with rough but 1) I can buy it cheap but this mill is just a saw mill, no finishing offered. 2) I buy and work with a few board feet at a time, not a few hundred board feet at a time. If I were depending on output to eat like Mark I expect my answer would be different.

[Scott Bernstein]

Well, I am a hobby woodworker. My ratio of money:time is >1. I have tried it various ways in terms of how I buy lumber...S4S, S2S, skip-planned, totally rough, etc... I found that with either S4S or S2S I saved virtually no time at all in terms of planning and jointing. Inevitably when I buy lumber, despite my best laid plans, I do not get straight to work on a given project. That lumber ends up sitting around in my garage or basement which causes it to warp, twist, etc... as it acclimates. So then I have to take that nice surfaced lumber and spend time milling it anyway, then I end up with lumber a little thinner that what I had planned. Totally rough takes the longest time (but not by much). So now most of my lumber I buy skip-planed, that seems to be the sweet-spot for me. I feel like I can get the most control over the final thickness and doesn't take quite as many trips through the planer as rough material. I have the luxury of a 16" jointer/planer combo machine, with nice long beds, which works amazingly well and is very fast. One of my largest projects so far was a 8' long dining room table made of 12/4 Ash, the combo machine made quick work of it. This may not be big for a real shop, but I went from a 6" jointer to a 16" and that really opened my eyes in terms of what I could accomplish. It gives me so much flexibility on the size lumber I can use. Instead of ripping, jointing two or three narrow pieces, then gluing them back together I can just quickly joint and plane as wide a piece as I need to. As for the chips and dust...the town where I live collects yards clippings for mulch & compost so I just put my wood dust & chips in the paper yard waste collection bags and they compost it.

If I had a small jointer and wanted to work with large lumber then I would definitely buy it S4S and just use it before it acclimates too much. Alternatively if one has more time, hand-planes are effective and (relatively) cheap!

[Andrew Hughes]

Well said Scott. I agree 100%

[Alex Zeller]

I haven't seen skip or even s2s at the places near me. Often it's just rough cut or if they have the ability to s3s and s4s. But their s3s/ s4s has been planed to 3/4" unless you want to pay for 5/4 lumber. So if a board twists or warps you are out of luck. The price difference varies, sometimes as little as 10% up to about 50% extra over rough cut. But the places that have prices listed are the bigger mills and lumber yards and their prices are usually a premium over some of the smaller mills that just offer rough cut which are much closer. So, at least for me, it also comes down to the extra driving time.

[Andy D Jones]

I'm with Jim. But I am a pure hobbiest. I am a retired (early by choice) electrical engineer, so my time is dirt cheap.

I LIKE revealing the beauty hidden in rough-sawn lumber! If I had the space and a source of standing timber, I would mill my own, and kiln dry it too.

I don't mind carrying bags of chips to the curb, or if I have some limbs and tree trimmings to go (my mower mulches the grass, and small trimmings), I'll take the bags of chips with them to the municipal landfill section where they grind and compost it.

I wouldn't do woodworking if I had to make money at it. That would absolutely kill the enjoyment for me. I RETIRED for a reason, to do what I want to do, at my own (slow) pace. And that includes jointing and planing my own lumber, and enjoying every bit of it.

But if you don't like to do that, by all means, pay someone else to do it. If you are paying people (including yourself) to do it, then pay someone who does it more efficiently than (but at least as well as) you can do it.

-- Andy - Arlington TX

[lowell holmes]

If the project is critical, I buy thicker material and plane it to thickness using my DW734 planer. I will joint the edges on my jointer. I can control the wood quality. If your going to be a bear, be a grizzly:).

[Joe Jensen]

Like most others I never buy surfaced material. I really enjoy using flat square and straight stock and the only way I find I can get this by;
1) cut parts to rough length and width
2) Surface on side flat on jointer
3) Thickness with planer to final thickness
4) Jointer to get one edge straight and perpendicular to the faces
5) Rip to width
6) crosscut one end
7) crosscut to length
By following this process nearly all the warp comes out in it's rough state and I end of with warp free boards.

[Alex Zeller]

This seams like asking someone "Do you buy spaghetti sauce or make it yourself". Making it yourself means you can get exactly what you want but clearly is more labor intensive.

[Mark Bolton]

Like most others I never buy surfaced material. I really enjoy using flat square and straight stock and the only way I find I can get this by

With material rough surfaced oversize you still have room for all those operations (and more) your just left handling 1/3 the chips. Now if your starting with some serious cup/twist/warp, then sure you may need all the material available to you and rough is for sure the answer. We have plenty of room even on wide stuff with 1/8" to 3/16" worth of material to work with and we have a relatively flat face and one straight edge to start with. The only caveat is as stated I typically bring in pretty high grade material so its in pretty nice shape coming through the door oversize.

[Mark e Kessler]

If I buy for a commercial job, residential trim, ect then yes, skipped dressed and SLR 1 edge, smaller custom high end no...

mark
https://www.instagram.com/kessler_woodworks/?hl=enhttps://www.instagram.com/kessler_woodworks/?hl=en