If you don't want to spend too much on lumber it is best to buy them while it is still green and just been cut by a sawmill. But by buying it this way, you cannot use the lumber for your projects for quite a while. If you have a lot of money to spend then you can probably purchase the lumber from home depot, but if you ask me I prefer mine to be rough and dried by me.
After you have planned everything from the project to your desired materials it is now time to make a purchase. Going to a sawmill and choosing the best lumber for the project is our next step, and if you go to a sawmill you will find lumbers that are just laying around that you can choose. You might also want to pick a lumber that is a little bit bigger because lumbers shrink when dries up.It will not be necessary to haggle the price of the lumber since the prices here are already discounted but if you are frequent customer they might give you better deal
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After you get your lumber home, you'll need to decide on how you will dry it. Air drying is on of the ways to dry you green lumber this is done by piling your boards directly under the sun but protected from the rain Each 1" thick board will take a year to dry up so if you have like a 4" thick board it takes 4 years. After they air-dry the moisture content will be around 12%-18%, this is still to wet to work with, so now you can bring the lumber inside your shop to finish drying.It is best to keep your shops RH to atleast 50% for the woods moisture to go down to atleast 8% and to do that you can use a thermometer/hygrometer to monitor from time to time
The other method of drying is to build a solar kiln. Plans for solar kilns can be found on the internet. You don't need much to have these built just a couple of hundred bucks and you have it. The green lumber can be placed immediately inside the solar kiln for it to start drying. Drying the lumber can sometimes depend on your location and the temperature however it usually takes 30-60 days to have it dried or reach the 6%-8% moisture to make it ready for use.
Processing your lumber can start as soon as it reaches it's ideal moisture content. The first thing you want to do is joint one area of your board. This can be accomplished by hand using a hand plane or maybe the easy method with a jointer. You may now cut it in close to the dimensions that you need. And then you can run the lumber through the thickness planer. This process will make the board equal in thickness. After you plane the panel right down to the final size, then you joint one edge perhaps by hand or with a jointer. Cutting the board to the final width is the next process after you have planed the it to your desired thickness. You can have this done by making use of saw to cut the board. To set your board to the desired width you can used the edge of the board as guide. You're now almost ready to have a board for your project. Processing the rough boards yourself can really save you a lot of money than purchasing the ready made one from your home improvements shops
