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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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).