Do you buy lumber S2S?

[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
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