Perhaps the easiest way that you can buy you lumber is while it is freshly cut by a sawmill. Your home improvement projects will need to wait for a while if these is the lumber you have intended to use, because this lumber needs to be dried out first. The only alternative will be by purchasing dried lumbers from home improvement shops , that is if you have a lot of money but personally I'd like mine rough cut and prepared 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. Green lumbers shrink when it is dried up so you might want to get something that is a little bit over sized.You should find that the price you pay here will be very good, so don't try to haggle the price down. If they like you and you become a repeat customer they will probably give you even better deals later on.

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After bringing the green lumber home you will then need to dry it. One step is to pile your boards outside; undercover from rain and direct sun light; flat; with small (1"x1"x how ever wide your pile is) stickers spaced 12"-24" apart, between every layer of lumber (this allows air to circulate around the boards); this is called "Air-Drying." It takes a year to dry a 1" thick board so if you have 2" it will take 2 years etc... 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.The ideal RH of your shop should b 50% for the lumber to dry down to 8% moisture and for you to be able to monitor the humidity you can purchase the rmometer/hygrometer from radio shack that will cost you around $40

One other method for drying a green lumber is by the use of solar kiln . There are a lot of solar kiln plans online. Building it will only cost you around $200. The green lumber can be placed immediately inside the solar kiln for it to start drying. It usually takes 1-2 months for the lumber to dry down to 6-8% moisture and be ready for use. But sometimes the location and temperature matters..

You can start processing the lumber as soon as its dried up. The first thing you want to do is joint one area of the board. This can be accomplished manually using a hand plane or the quick method with a jointer. You can then cut the board to your lose to the final length needed. And then you can run the lumber through the thickness planer. This process will make the board equal in thickness. Once you plane the panel down to your final thickness, you then joint one edge perhaps by yourself or with a jointer. With the board flat, planed to the final thickness you are ready to rip the board to your final width. You can have this done by making use of saw to cut the board. Just set your fence or edge guide to the desired width and use the jointed edge of the board as a reference. After you have cut the final measurement you can now start building your project. You're done, and you saved tons of money by processing the rough boards yourself.