quartersawn fir

[jerry cousins]

i don't know about the difference between the 8" & 10" - but likely the lighter material is white fir - not as dense as doug fir - so likely stains a bit easier. it's a pretty common species around here (pnw) logged for framing material
jerry

[Mel Fulks]

White fir is the same thing as "hem fir". Just looked it up, OK for indoor stuff. Not as good as real fir for outside use.
In comparing quotes make sure you pin the dealers to the facts. I've seen it sold as fir,that is why I made earlier warning.
Ive never used it in framing but I can see that it would be fine. In getting quotes for fir you will always get somebody
quoting the "hem-fir" ....by surname only.

[Joe Calhoon]

One of the best grades in CVG Fir is called 85/15. It will generally have less pitch pockets and tighter rings. That said I have seen a lot of variation in this material over the years. Good and bad.

[Ben Zara]

Condon Lumber in New York sells tons of clear vertical grain Doug fir. I bought an 18 foot long piece once there that I wanted to make a piece with lots of sequential matched panels.
I don't think this product is rare though, any decent lumber yard should sell this.

[kent wardecke]

I've picked through the pile of D-fir marked 2" x4"s at Lowe's looking for the tight parallel grain . I don't think it's rare it's a logistics thing .on the West coast they use D-fir like we use SYP here in the Eastern US.
Now the white wood marked SPF is a Canadian trademarked mix of spruce pine and fir and the largest I've seen is 2" x6"

[Mike Ontko]

Sounds like you want CVG fir (Clear Vertical Grain)? That's not an uncommon product, and you should be able to find it. Maybe the nomenclature (qs vs CVG) is what's causing the problem.

True that it's not an uncommon product but even here in the PNW where it's abundant (some places will refer to it specifically as CVG Douglas Fir), you'll still pay a premium per board foot.

[Tim Bueler]

White fir is the same thing as "hem fir".

It depends on what part of the NW US. In western WA, where I grew up, there is a lot of hemlock, graded as hem-fir. There is also a lot of douglas fir, graded as d-fir. Where I'm living now, N central Idaho, hemlock doesn't grow. The predominant framing lumber available to me here is DF/L, douglas fir and/or western larch, a.k.a. Tamarack. They also cut ponderosa pine here, known locally as "yellow pine". Local nomenclatures also include spruce, white pine (can't remember the commercial species name on those 2) and also "white fir" which comes from grand and noble firs. These later are generally sole under the grade S/P/F, for spruce, pine, fir.

True CVG douglas fir is more difficult to come by because of modern timber harvesting practices. When I was kid it wasn't unusual to see 2, 3 or 4 log loads going into the local mill. Those trees generated a LOT of beautiful, clear, tight grained lumber. Today they start docking you for anything larger than 18" (around here anyhow) and the loads I see going into the mill today, that get used for [absolutely deplorable] framing lumber, would've been hauled to the pulp mill. The d-fir I get still smells the same though and brings back memories of my granfather's dirt floor wood shop. It still finishes more red, but not as rich as some of the decades old planks I have laying around.

It all depends on what part of the country you're from as to what's available and the cost thereof. I recently paid more for a few pieces of CVG Fir than I did for a similar amount of QS Sapele.