Cheap hardwood lumber Northern California/ A journey to build All my furniture

[Curt Harms]

Access for plentiful and reasonably priced hardwood is a benefit of living east of the Rockies. I haven't use much ash but what little I used was flat sawn and the grain was pretty pronounced with quite a bit of cathedral pattern. That may have just been the rough boards I selected. Richard suggested rift sawn which should help with that. I found it okay to work with, a little tearout planing and jointing with a straight knife combo machine but not bad.

On the other side of the coin, we had an alder entertainment center that I wanted to add to. I could buy cherry for less than alder in eastern Pennsylvania.

[Jim Becker]

Curt, rift-sawn ash is really nice. So is rift-sawn white oak. And walnut. And cherry. LOL I'm actually a fan of rift sawn material.

[Dave Mills]

Also keep in mind that Aura, at least the one up here in Sacramento, keeps the vast amounts of its hardwood in stacks in the warehouse, not in the small display up front. For example they have S3S white oak up front, but everything to rough in back where you'd never know it. You need to ask them for pricing and to forklift up a stack of it if you want some.

Home Depot rents trucks for $20 for the first 80 minutes...

[Ray Newman]

Is White Brothers on Tidewater in Oakland still in business?

Before I moved from Castro Valley in 2001, Whites Bros. was my main choice for hardwood lumber and hardwood plyw'd.

[George Mathew]

I used to buy lumber from Southern Lumber (they closed down few years back).

The prices were high so moved to Global woods.
They had a large store in San Jose. Now they moved to Campbell.

Now a days, I buy my lumber from MacBeath Hardwood in Berkley.

[Bob Hinden]

My main source of hardwood is MacBeath Hardwood in Berkley. Great selection. I have them cut it to lengths that will fit in my car with the seats folded down.

[John Strong]

If I can get a really good deal on 4inch strips of rift sawn oak, should I pull trigger? Feels like with the straight grain, I could glue up panels where its hard to distinguish the joints.

[John Strong]

Curt, rift-sawn ash is really nice. So is rift-sawn white oak. And walnut. And cherry. LOL I'm actually a fan of rift sawn material.

If I can get a really good deal on 4inch strips of rift sawn oak, should I pull trigger? Feels like with the straight grain, I could glue up panels where its hard to distinguish the joints.

[Jim Matthews]

Try a small batch, first.

No sense laying in stores of material you don't care to use.

[Jim Becker]

If I can get a really good deal on 4inch strips of rift sawn oak, should I pull trigger? Feels like with the straight grain, I could glue up panels where its hard to distinguish the joints.

It's only a good deal if you like it and will use it as Mr. Matthews suggests. But yes, laying up panels with rift sawn can very often help make joints less visible. The negative to the material you mention is the 4" width. That makes for a LOT of glue joints if you are making panels. But a lot of rift material comes from being ripped off the edges of wider boards because that provides more overall yield from the tree than cutting the log specifically for rift.

[Ira Matheny]

Aura hardwoods is a supplier to many wood sellers, lumber yards, and many processor/manufactures of cabinet, furniture and similar.
They sell to walk in customers. you walk thru building, push their cart, load your purchases and take to a sales counter near the front. If you want to look a a skid on material, get a fork lift to dig it out and place it somewhere so that you can inspect.
NO SERVICES.
If you want shorts, buy what they have and use your own tools to cut/haul.
Prices many times are 10%/20% or even more than most lumber yard prices.