Wood question

Rob Keeble

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12,633
Location
GTA Ontario Canada
I got going jointing and planning a bunch of wood over the long weekend.

My question is, it worth leaving wood rough sawn and if so why?

If one has a place to carefully store surfaced lumber i think its better so at least you can see what you have for a project.

I suppose some of what i am saying has to do with how well the rough sawn wood was sawn in first place. Stuff i had was terrible, lost a lot of wood in clean up, but whats left is real nice.
Now i am thinking of going to town and doing the lot and get it over.

Unless u wise people say different.
 
From my experience, we always had hit and miss s2s for our lumber at the mills. We only bought rough lumber if we needed just a little thicker lumber than the 15/16" (4/4) for a profile. We just used bullsters and bunked up the lumber and it did fine. At GLW we had over 50,000 bdft at a time like that.
 
Nothing wrong with surfacing the boards to see what you've got, but I wouldn't try to go to final thickness until you know what you're using the board for. Most of what I buy from my lumber places are skip planed or only planed on one side and edge, which I leave that way until I'm ready to use it since I can usually see the grain.
 
I prefer storing as Rough Sawn.

It's always a surprise to see what is inside, but mostly it is all ok when you do.

Wood moves, no matter what. Just sitting on the shelf for a day or two, and it will change in one way or another.

I like to leave as much material as possible on the until I need to use it.

When I DO go to use it I will select based on my needs. I will skip plane if I really need to with a few swipes of a hand plane. I will cut width and length to within an inch and then surface to suit.

If I am really fussy I will surface but leave material on. I will then sticker on my workbench for as much as a week before final surfacing.

After final surfacing I will build as soon as possible, before the wood moves some more.

It does not really matter what you do - wood is going to move - sometimes significantly.

If I have 3/4 dimensioned lumber in storage, it is very unlikely that it will be used as 3/4 in a project. It most likely will become 1/2 or 1/4 in the project.
 
When I get rough-sawn, I keep it that way with the exception of knocking off some dust and fibers to check a grain pattern. I don't take it to the jinter and planer until I start cutting it down to oversized "final" pieces. In many cases, a full length board might have a bow or twist that I can work around with smaller pieces. It may seem a bit anal, but I also let rough length cuts rest overnight before I joint and plane them to 'near' final dimensions. Only after another overnight rest do I take pieces to 'final-final' sizing.
 
Oh, that's what I often buy. Didn't know there was an acronym for it.

Heh I think there's an acronym for everything anymore :)


In many cases, a full length board might have a bow or twist that I can work around with smaller pieces.

This right here is my argument although it depends on the piece whether it makes a difference or not. I've also been known to leave one rough (or at least just hand planed kinda smooth) side when I needed something thicker where it wouldn't show.
 
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