How to get material

[Garth Almgren]

Dang, if only I didn't have to work today and go to class tomorrow... That looks like an interesting sale.

[glenn bradley]

One way to acquire material at a good cost is to have somewhere to put it. I've re-org'd a few times to increase material storage so now when I do find something worth snapping up, I do it without hesitation. No one wants to lay out $400 for lumber, store it improperly and have $100 worth of usable material when it comes time to use it. Prices (and deals) vary with your location. I am green with envy when I see all the material folks get right off of their property in some parts of the world. I live in a desert basin and nothing much in the way a hardwood grows here all by itself ;-) I'm in SoCal and your area will vary but, I recently paid $8.15/bf for 5/4 walnut (the highest I've ever paid) and $4.48/bf for 6/4 cherry (about average). Around here there is a premium for wider than 9" and a sliding scale for thickness increases.

[Earl McLain]

Daniel--i ran across a retired wood nut in South Bend, IN a few weeks ago through Craigslist. Stuffed the back of my car with walnut "shorts", 3' to 4' long and 9" to 12" wide. I'd estimate 65 to 70 bf, would all grade at least #1 common--fair amount probably S & B (select and better). Spent $100. Here's his ad http://southbend.craigslist.org/tls/4720090102.html Pictures don't do the red cedar justice. I was there the day he was bringing the osage logs in--that's beautiful!! Downside--it's mostly cut in the last year and air drying so it will be a year or two before i can use it. About a third was cut 20 years ago. He's got a stock of dry so there's some stuff available to use now. I'd guess that for $400 to $500 you could load a pickup truck pretty full. Pictures of some of my $100 spree are below.
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[Rich Engelhardt]

So my question is how do you guys buy lumber to build your projects? Is there a trick that I’m unaware of?

No trick really.
My local lumber yard sells S4S by the linear foot for decent quality poplar, red oak, cherry and walnut.
If I'm building something small, I just run there and pick up a few board feet of what I want. It runs about four times the cost of rough lumber I have to mill, but, it has the advantage of nearly zero waste & I can pick and choose what I want as "what you see is what you get" type of thing.

For rough lumber I mill myself, I go down to Hartville Hardware and pick up what I need and take it home and joint, plane and rip what I need.

Craig's List, as mentioned above, also has some good deals.

Unlike the others above, I avoid estate sales for the most part.
Just too much hassle what with all the emotional crud.
People ignorant of wood prices for rough wood put outrageous prices on it by going to the borg and getting prices of the S4S junk there, then add on something for a haggle margin. When you try to point out to them that they want 6 times more for a board than it's worth, they think you're trying to take advantage of them in their time of need.