Where can I get the best wood 2x4 studs?

[Daniel Bejarano]

I've seen many projects done with 2x4's and all of them seem to come out so right and straight until.....

All I have built with Home depot 2x4s is a rack to accommodate my sheets of plywood. My opinion is that they are difficult to work with specially if days go by, since they start to warp as they dry. You can manage to grab straight ones and still have issues with them.

I am a cabinet maker who regularly works with man-made materials, plywood and premium solid wood.

This time I need to make a table for general work for an upholstery shop, and I was wondering if all the affordable 2x4s I see people making stuff with online and in you tube is all I can get?

The idea here is to avoid buying or making my own 2x4s or fatter pieces that would be called rather posts for the legs, with 1-1/2" plywood or even 3/4" laminations, or even having to machine poplar, for example, to make the structure of the table.

Table will be 92" x 60" by 32" tall with a shelve at the bottom.

[Bill Dufour]

I look at both ends and try to take only quarter sawn. Avoid center cut like the plague. Bring them home and sticker and let dry at least one week before looking. return the twisted ones, rinse and repeat.
Bill D

[andy bessette]

...All I have built with Home depot 2x4s...

Come on! If you shop at the worst possible supplier, expect the worst possible materials.

2x4 studs are intended for rough framing--not cabinetwork. Though it is often possible to find quality material at good lumber yards. For cabinetwork, look for clear fir at better lumber yards.

[Rich Engelhardt]

If it's premium at affordable prices, I find you can manufacture your own by ripping a 2x8 in half.

I'm not exactly sure why, but, it seems that the wider stuff is less pretzel prone.

[Kent A Bathurst]

"Stud" is a specific grade of lumber for vertical use, with attention paid to a solid 1-1/2" nailing surface. 2x4 and 2x6 widths. Once it is in place in a wall construction, it won't move as much as it dries.

Within a bundle of wood, 5% is allowed to be "off-grade", so you can expect to see some STUD grade with wane on the edges, and other defects.

The BORG is in a very competitive price-sensitive business, with lumber accounting for the biggest $ volume of any department. They are supplying what their customer base wants, and are very effective at it.

If you want a higher grade of lumber, then buy a higher grade of lumber. It varies widely by market, but the BORG in a given region may carry different grades. Generally, a local lumber supply yard would be the place to go for different grades. Select Structural, #1, #2, #2&better - all of these are available, at least in various markets.

Rich's comment about ripping 2 x 8 is quite possibly right on target, because AFAIK they don't produce 2 x 8 in stud grade - 2 x 8 walls are not a common "thing". So Rich is dealing with a grade that is designed for structural integrity, and the higher the grade the better the stick for projects like this.

As far as the upholstery-shop table, get the lumber from the store racks into the assembled table promptly. Don't get a month's worth at a time. Cut your short parts as soon as possible - the shorter fiber lengths won't twist as badly as the full-length fibers

[Lee Schierer]

Yes, the quality of 2x4's has degraded over the years. They used to be almost knot free and tighter grain. In my experience there are several different grades of 2 x 4's at the borgs. The lowest price ones are also the lowest quality with more knots and wane. I've made things using borg 2x4's but didn't buy the lower grade ones. It is advisable to stack and sticker them when you get them to your shop and never, ever lay them out in the sun or on the lawn.

[Prashun Patel]

Imho, the vehemence against borg lumber puzzles me. For a simple table you need only a few straight pieces. Pick through the pile, find ones that look straight and relatively defect free and have been kd.

It’s never been a problem for maybe the 20 tables, benches and kids projects I’ve done w Borg lumber.

[roger wiegand]

A real lumber yard or a local sawmill. The real lumber yard will provide wood of different grades and qualities, at prices proportional to the quality. I've discovered a great sawmill near a friends place in Schuylerville NY which is a fantastic source for relatively inexpensive, very nice wood for projects where you don't need a grade stamp on the lumber. Such places must exist all over the country. They source trees, mostly Eastern white pine, locally, mostly MUCH bigger trees than the stud lumber plantations use. A large percentage of the wood is mostly clear with nothing near the pith of the tree. It's made pine an interesting choice of wood for many utility projects for me.

[Jim Becker]

A "real" lumber yard like Roger mentions may have better material to choose from. Another "trick" for when you need/want the rift/qs grain and straightness is to buy the wide boards and rip your narrower material from the edges where the grain is suitable for your application. Yes, they cost more. It's a balancing act between achieving what you want to accomplish vs cost.

That said, I'm also with Prashun and have had pretty good results by carefully choosing the 2x4 material at the Orange 'borg, preferably from a new bunk that hasn't been picked over. I literally have hung from the rack to do that a few times but ended up with about the straightest boards possible and was able to clean them up further in the case of my slab flattening table on the jointer/thicknesser.

[Tom M King]

I could tell a long story about 2x4's. When the last local, good building supplier with their own sawmill went out of business in 1992, I had the best two old carpenters around these parts working for me.

Before that closure, anyone could go buy straight Yellow Pine 2x4's up to 16 feet long. The next year I built a house using hand picked what we know today as framing lumber. After we had the 1993 house closed in, and started to work on the inside, we had to cut a large percentage of the studs to sister them with straight pieces. Both of my old carpenters quit, saying they couldn't stand working with that kind of lumber any more. They both spent the rest of their lives building cabinets in their back yard shops.

After that, I started buying bundles and letting them sit for the house the next year.

Even today, not buying whole bundles of lumber to let move, I pick the best pieces and keep them for as long as possible before building anything from them.

[Prashun Patel]

If you are buying piles of 2x4's for a house, I can understand going to a dedicated lumber dealer. You need to trust the pieces sight unseen.

But try going to a lumber dealer and buying just a few select 2x4's for your 'furniture' project. The couple few yards around me don't take kindly to me picking through the construction lumber pile.

FWIW, my BORG has kd Doug Fir, which I usually have very good luck with vis-a-vis the "SPF" pile.

[Steve Engelschall]

Where I live (Arizona), the 2x4's at the Blue BORG (Lowes) are far superior to the ones at the Orange BORG. The blue ones appear to be kiln dried and more stable than the orange ones which are always heavy and sopping wet like they've been stored in the rain.

I too will pick through an entire stack if I have to, looking for the quartersawn ones. Also agree with the previous comment that the wider boards (2x8, 2x10, 2x12) are better specimens and can be ripped down.

[Malcolm McLeod]

I can't tell you where to source them, but can offer some insight to why studs 'move' - - I did some automation work for a nationally known lumber mill* that involved a 'curve saw'. This was before finger jointing studs was used - at this plant at least. Rather than the folding gardener's pocket trim saw you may envision, this one was massive - 12-15ft tall and 60-80ft long. A laser scanned every log coming in, auto-positioned the several blades for best yield of 2x4 and 2x6 material, then hydraulic log clamps aligned the lead-in of the log to the saw and passed it through the saw - adjusting alignment all the way, so that blades remained tangent to any curve in the log. One log :: one pass. The only thing to emerge from the saw was 'finished' 2Xs and dust. The various sizes were separated and conveyed to a bundle (pallet), where they were collectively clamped (straight) and strapped. Presumably, drying will ensure they remain straight. Right.

I observed some logs with at least a 3' offset/dog-leg in them, and the saw handled them easily. The really ugly ones got kicked out, and sent to the pulp area.

* This was primarily a plywood mill, and I was there to add features to bring the waste cores from the plywood operation into the curve saw (so the pith most assuredly became lumber).

[glenn bradley]

I just use poplar instead. If you buy from a reputable yard the stock is properly prepared and stored. It's inexpensive and by the time I get enough usable material from larger dimensional lumber, it is often cheaper.

499378

This base is poplar and cost less than the 2x12 material base that it replaced. The dimensional lumber base went wonky after a few months despite being acclimated in my shop for 2 months prior to milling.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Our local Lowes, Home Depot and Menards are all on the same page when it comes to 2x4 pretzels.
They won't bring out a new bunk and unband it until the old bunk is empty.
If there's just crap in the bunk, they refuse to restock it.

[Dave Roock]

Having to sort through some boards to find the better boards is nothing recent. A "better" lumber yard may have some overall better boards but if you do not sort, you will get some stinkers. I remember going to a "better yard" some years back and still had to do some sorting. Home Depot will have some good boards but there may/will be some pretzels from others doing sorting. Ripping a wider board is a great option, still some sorting there. Building the same project with 2x6 or 2x8 will build a stronger frame. Helpful discussion, going to build a stand for a radial arm saw to line up at steel table height ( just picked table up). After looking at premade bench options, building one made far more sense from both a financial perspective and a quality/strength perspective.

[Paul F Franklin]

Avoid the problem by using LSL (laminated strand lumber). Start straight, stay straight, stronger than sawn lumber. More expensive, but if you don't need many so what. Downsides: somewhat rough surface, heavy, hard to hand nail.

[Tom M King]

This is good stuff, if you can find it. I don't think it comes in 2x4's, but I've made smaller pieces out of it. Even this needs to be equalized for a while.

https://www.weyerhaeuser.com/woodproducts/lumber/southern-lumber/framer-series/

[andy bessette]

"Studs" are often green lumber. You can almost watch the sap leaking out of them. While they make nailing easy, this is not what you want for cabinet work. You want dry wood.

[Richard Coers]

If you want to build dog houses, buy construction lumber. If you want to build furniture, buy furniture grade. #1 common in soft maple and poplar are great budget options for furniture. If you have no care of what the lumber looks like, get on the bandwagon and build with pallet lumber.

[Mel Fulks]

I’ve seen old true 2x4s of heart pine in salvage stores .

[Michael Drew]

I'd look for white pine, #1. You won't find it in the box stores. Also, just get 8' lengths. Studs are just 91.5" lengths for use with bottom and top plates in standard 8' wall height construction. If you are banging out track houses and buying flats of lumber, then get the pre-cut studs.

[Patrick Kane]

If you want to build dog houses, buy construction lumber. If you want to build furniture, buy furniture grade. #1 common in soft maple and poplar are great budget options for furniture. If you have no care of what the lumber looks like, get on the bandwagon and build with pallet lumber.

I regularly see roughcut poplar in the $1-1.30bdft range, which doesnt make it too too much more expensive than a typical 2x4 'stud'. Maybe you pay 30% more, and you have to surface the material yourself, but it will be night and day to construction grade lumber.

[Cameron Wood]

I disagree with the 2x8 strategy. IME (west coast), 2x8s are milled from the outside of logs and are routinely crappy, with sapwood and waney edges-
to be avoided if possible.

[Tom M King]

The problem is both the way trees are grown, and the way the lumber is processed.

As a grower of Pine timber, you have to file a Timber Management Plan to keep the land in the low tax rate. I write my own plan, and it's different than what is taught in schools these days, but no different than my Ancestors used. I've had to threaten to go to court, which I would do, to county officials that approve the plans. The law says nothing much about how the plan has to be, or whether it's written by a professional. My plan is approved.

Today, they grow timber to yield trunks large enough to be harvested as early as possible. This means the trees are thinned early, and given room to spread out. Small sizes of framing lumber has a large percentage of Juvenile wood in them. 4x4's are almost all Juvenile wood. Since the trees are thinned so early, limbs branch out all the way to the ground.

Good timber growers used to let Pine trees grow thick and tall before they were ever thinned the first time. This makes the lower limbs fall off while the trees are small diameter as the crown stretches up to get light. We like for the lowest limbs to be 34 feet up before ever thinning the first time. This makes the trees tall and spindly, and as a result don't reach the same diameter as fast as the early thinned ones that have limbs all the way to the ground. With limbs about 34 feet, the trees are thinned to allow them to grow bigger, which as a by product gives you a small amount of Juvenile wood relative to the ones thinned early.

When exposed to light, hardwood tree trunks will grow new limbs all the way to the ground. Pine doesn't do that. When limbs fall off, they aren't replaced, but the tree continues to grow up and out, and the rest of the wood on the trunks is clear.

There is some danger to losing some to ice, but you don't thin them enough for this to matter the first time in case you lose some before they get large enough to withstand a load of ice.

This is the way you grow large, clear saw logs. It has taken longer to get them to your harvest target, but the value of the logs are higher enough to make up for it, it just takes much longer.

These are logs you get good quality lumber out of.

Now about the lumber processing:

Up until the past three decades, you could buy no.2 Yellow Pine 2x4's up to 16 feet long that were straight, and would stay straight. The mills would rough saw good timbers, air dry the wood on stickers for a year outside, then put them in a kiln slow fired with sawdust from the mill, and then do the final processing, which included a straightline saw to start with.

These days, they saw the lumber one day, kiln dry it overnight, dress it in the morning, and band it in bundles. You need to stand back when you cut one of these bands. This is the framing lumber we know today, for the most part.

Around here, you can't even buy a Yellow Pine 2x4 or 2x6 these days because it's almost all non useable when processed like this. Pine is a very stable wood if grown and processed well.

[Dave Roock]

Stopped in the most visited local Home Depot & checked out the 2x4 and other lumber. Stud grade had some good boards but needed some careful sorting as usual.
There were better grade boards available. One option was called Premium Burrill Fir Stud. Very nice boards, $4.57 ea. / 100+ $4.11 ea Checked overall customer reviews and saw mostly good reviews. Some very nice SYP lumber also. You will have to sort anywhere you go, Home Depot gets a bad rap somewhat unfairly. Picked up a Red Oak plywood sheet there last year, it was a very good board but I sorted through a few to grab a good one. Spending a few extra $ to get a few premium boards = a good idea.

[William Hodge]

Daniel, it's worth getting decent wood for the upholstery work bench. Talk to a wholesaler, see what they have. You mentioned Polar, that works great as a utility wood. Given the cost of the wood and the cost of labor, the cost of wood should not be a major percentage of the price. I am selling three board feet of wood for $1,625., made into some mill work. I buy the wood for $6. a foot, and am machining it, and assembling it, and selling it for $541. a board foot.

Poplar might be $4. or $5. a foot, it's worth it to make a cart that won't warp and twist. Any framing lumber is subject to some movement, by definition. We all have stories. I bought dry Czechoslovakian 2 x 4's at a lumber yard, and I built my sister a bed out of them. 30 years ago. I built a generator shed out of Home Depot lumber last fall. It worked great. the 6' x 8' shed is out of square on the diagonals by 2", but I chalk that up to my carpentry skills, not the wood.

[Jim Dwight]

I need to quit blogging and go work on a somewhat similar table I committed to make for a work room at church. The pastor who ordered it wants it nice enough he can pull it out into the lobby area sometimes. I picked out 2x4s for it last Thursday and have the doubled up pieces glued together and ripped to rough dimension. I need to run them through the planner and cut to length and make the pieces which are not doubled out of the rest of the pile.

When I got to the BORG (my favorite locally for several reasons but mainly proximetry, the Lowe's takes 10-15 minutes longer to reach) I looked at the stack of 2x4s. It was an almost new bundle that had not been picked over. If I found a picked over bundle, I would have started looking at wider material to rip down. I still had to pick through the stack to find decent pieces but I got what I think I need plus a few pieces - to allow for those that move before I get them fastened into the table. I haven't measured the moisture content cut I expect it will be up to 20%. Not the best for furniture making but I've used similar material several times in the past. It can work but you need to allow for more shrinkage. The best thing about using this material is the price. I think I paid $50 for what I need which is a lot less than I will spend on the top (prefinished flooring to match a picture of what they want).

[Ben Ellenberger]

I regularly see roughcut poplar in the $1-1.30bdft range, which doesnt make it too too much more expensive than a typical 2x4 'stud'. Maybe you pay 30% more, and you have to surface the material yourself, but it will be night and day to construction grade lumber.

This is my approach too. I pretty much only use poplar for “inexpensive” furniture I make. I’m sure you could save a few dollars picking through framing lumber and trimming it down, but I value my time more highly than that.

[Dave Sabo]

Around me Lowes consistently has the best 2x4s of anyplace , incld. the 100+ year old lumber/ milwork supplier.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Reclaimed can be a good source but you run the risk of compromising a $100.00 blade for a $2.00 piece of wood. A metal detector is on my list of wants.

[Kent A Bathurst]

The OP is in NY. Pretty much a certainty that the studs he sees are SPF KD19. Spruce-Pine-Fir, Kiln Dried to 19%. Spruce-Pine-Fir is a group of species that all have the same physical properties, so they are lumped together. It comes from Eastern Canada. There is a separate Western SPF that is a much different critter.

Most of us would sticker and store wood until the %MC dropped well below 19%. Not required for framing lumber.

Tom speaks of Yellow Pine - it is technically SYP - Southern Yellow Pine. It has component species - loblolly, slash, longleaf, and shortleaf - with identical physical properties, to the point that once processed, they can't be told apart. Old-growth SYP, or long-term growth like Tom describes, is mostly gone. Now it's plantation raised - very efficient at producing the fiber that the markets want - especially for pressure treating, pulp mills, etc., - at the price the markets are prepared to pay.

Andy speaks of green lumber studs. He doesn't mention his location, but my money is on the west coast. Green Doug Fir is a huge thing - used for construction all up and down the left coast. Grows NoCal to BC. Structural values very high, and straight-grained. When framed in, it stays straight as it dries.

My point is there are wide variations in the properties of softwood stud-grade lumber by region. There are other species that you will also come across.

Oh - By the way - yeah, PT SYP can go crazy on you as it dries. Nowhere near a "straight-grained" species. Buy a couple day's worth at a time, or come up with a scheme to keep the stack tightly bound. OR - search for KDAT lumber. Kiln Dried After Treating. They pressure treat the lumber, restack it with spacers, into the dry kiln to return it to 19%, then remove the stickers and restack.
Haven't personally seen it in the BORG, but maybe in some markets. It's definitely out there.

[Tom M King]

Any time I walk by the PT racks in Lowes or Home Depot, if there are clear boards on the top of any stacks of 2x8 and up, they go home with me to be air dried under a shed for years before some future use that is not even planned yet.

[Tom M King]

Same for untreated SYP framing lumber. Clear and straight grained.

[andy bessette]

...Andy speaks of green lumber studs. He doesn't mention his location...

Thank you for pointing that out. Some of my profile info was deleted. So I corrected that. And you are correct about west coast.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Avoid the problem by using LSL (laminated strand lumber). Start straight, stay straight, stronger than sawn lumber. More expensive, but if you don't need many so what. Downsides: somewhat rough surface, heavy, hard to hand nail.
I see you're also in NE Ohio.
Who sells LSL in this area & can it be had in small quantities?

Re: "hard to nail". (to no one in particular). I've run across quite a few 2x4s that measured 1.75" X 3.75". They also weighed a ton. I tried to drive a nail into one using a hammer and gave up after bending a half dozen.
I have a new found respect for the carpenters of 50/75/100 years ago that could nail those bad boys all day long & let's not forget - drive slotted screws into them and not bugger up the heads!

[Richard Coers]

I see you're also in NE Ohio.
Who sells LSL in this area & can it be had in small quantities?

Re: "hard to nail". (to no one in particular). I've run across quite a few 2x4s that measured 1.75" X 3.75". They also weighed a ton. I tried to drive a nail into one using a hammer and gave up after bending a half dozen.
I have a new found respect for the carpenters of 50/75/100 years ago that could nail those bad boys all day long & let's not forget - drive slotted screws into them and not bugger up the heads!
Very likely you were working with Douglas Fir. It seems to continually harden over time. I used recycled old Douglas Fir to build a garage. The only nail that would consistently work were called pole barn nails around here. Hardened ring shank nails. If there was a mistake, those ring shanks would not come out. When toe nailing that old fir, I had to predrill. Free lumber was not free labor!

[Daniel Bejarano]

Thank you for all the amazing answers. When I labeled my post 2x4 studs I was generalizing, including wide boards as well, until now.

I know for a fact that any solid wood that crosses the door at the shop where I work, mostly poplar, soft maple and oak, after i machine it, sticker it, machine it some more, sticker it again and maybe do a final pass on the same machines before final trimming (it's a days process,) is going to be far superior to anything I buy as rough construction material at the big box store. It's definitely worth knowing where and how to get wood that doesn't need this same machining process because that's time consuming and costly, only for people that can and wants to afford it.

The client for the table likes to bargain and ultimately doesn't know anything about wood and really doesn't even care what I end up using as long as it is cheap and functional. But once again, I am a cabinet maker, not a do-it-yourself aficionado.

In any case you all provided good sources of information, stuff about wood grading, origin, moisture management that I didn't know or needed a big refresher on.


danibejar.com

[Tom M King]

Daniel, I know it sounds slight, but that is not a client I would spend any time at all with.