The cheapest way to buy lumber is green and rough cut from a sawmill in your area. Because the lumber is still fresh you need to dry it for a while before you can use it for your projects. 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.

If you already have project in mind you may then plan for the materials you will need. If you go directly to a sawmill they will let you go around pick your choice of lumber. You might also want to pick a lumber that is a little bit bigger because lumbers shrink when dries up.Since the prices of their prices are already very low asking for discount is not really necessary and if you've been a repeat customer I am sure they will give you a better deal on your next visit

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As soon as the lumber gets home drying it will be the next step. In drying your lumbers all you need to do is pile them up make sure that there is around 12"-24" space between each other and it is dried under the sun but is covered from the rain, this is process is usually known as ' Air Drying" It takes a year to dry a 1" thick board so if you have 2" it will take 2 years etc... After a year you can bring the umber inside your shop to continue the process since it still has 12%-18% moisture.If your shop has low humidity you can let your lumber finish drying for a few weeks in there. I suggest that you buy a thermometer/hygrometer from Radio Shack. It is only about $40 and you can buy remote sensors for it to monitor other areas. The humidity in your shop should be under 50%RH to allow your lumber to finish drying down to 8% moisture content.

One other method for drying a green lumber is by the use of solar kiln . There are a lot of solar kiln plans online. These kilns can be built for only a couple hundred dollars. When you bring your lumber home you can immediately put your lumber in the solar kiln and begin 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. First thing you want to do is joint one face of the panel. This can be accomplished by hand with a hand plane or the quick way by using a jointer. It makes things a lot easier if you cut the board down to a length close to your final needed length. And then you can run the lumber through the thickness planer. This will make the board parallel to the flat face. Once you plane the panel down to the final size, afterwards you joint one side perhaps by yourself or by making use of a jointer. With the board flat, planed to the final thickness you are ready to rip the board to your final width. You can do this with a table saw, band saw, or even a skill saw with an edge guide. Make sure that you are able to set the edge guide by using the jointed edge for reference. You are now close to starting your project. Cutting your own board from scratch surely saves you a lot of money