Hardwood dealers have gotten complicated with all the online lumber brokers, big-box stores, and Instagram woodworkers recommending their favorite suppliers flying around. As someone who has bought lumber from dealers across twelve states over twenty years, I learned everything there is to know about picking boards from rough stacks. Today, I will share it all with you.
Walking into a hardwood dealer for the first time intimidates most woodworkers. The stacks of rough lumber look nothing like the clean boards at home improvement stores. No dimensional markings, no surfacing, just raw wood speaking a language you have not learned yet. Here is how to become fluent.
Understanding Lumber Grading
Hardwood grades describe the percentage of clear, defect-free wood in a board. FAS (Firsts and Seconds) guarantees 83 percent clear face area in boards at least 6 inches wide. Select offers similar quality at narrower widths. Number 1 Common drops to 66 percent clear area and is the grade I buy most often.
Probably should have led with this section, honestly. Do not automatically chase the highest grade. FAS commands premium prices for wide, clear boards that are often larger than your project needs. Number 1 Common from the same species and the same stack costs significantly less and yields excellent furniture-grade material as long as you are willing to work around defects and cut shorter pieces. I have built entire dining tables from Number 1 Common cherry that look identical to FAS work once the boards are cut and joined.
Reading Past the Rough Surface
Rough lumber hides its true character under saw marks and mill glaze. That board that looks perfect in the stack might reveal terrible figure, hidden sapwood, or internal stress that only appears after surfacing. Learning to read rough lumber is a skill that saves hundreds of dollars per project.
Look for consistent color across the board. Dramatic variation usually means sapwood mixing with heartwood. In walnut, that gives you striking contrast some clients love. In cherry, it means awkward pale streaks that darken at different rates. Know what you want before you buy.
Sight down the length of every board for bow, crook, and twist. Some distortion straightens out during milling, but severe cases eat so much thickness that you end up with boards too thin for the project. Cupped boards lose less material than twisted ones because cup only requires removing wood across the width.
Checking for Problems
Knots are not automatically disqualifying. Sound, tight knots add character and work fine in rustic designs or pieces where the aesthetic welcomes natural features. Loose knots that might fall out during machining and spike knots that penetrate all the way through the board are different problems. Those you avoid.
End checks, the small cracks at board ends caused by rapid drying, are normal and usually confine themselves to the last few inches of the board. Budget for trimming two to three inches off each end. Face checks running perpendicular to the grain indicate more serious drying stress and may continue opening during your project.
Reject boards showing sticker stain, the gray or dark lines left by the spacing sticks used during kiln drying. While theoretically surface-deep, that stain often persists after planing and looks particularly bad under clear finish. I learned this lesson with a batch of white oak that still showed faint shadow lines after three passes through the planer.
Moisture Content Matters More Than Grade
Ask the dealer about moisture content before discussing price or grade. Properly kiln-dried lumber for indoor furniture should read between 6 and 8 percent. Higher moisture means the boards will continue shrinking and warping after you mill them, and joints that were tight during assembly will open as the wood reaches equilibrium months later.
That’s what makes a good moisture meter endearing to us furniture makers — it tells you the truth about a board when the dealer might not. Press the pins into a freshly cut end, not the weathered surface, for accurate readings. Different species have different electrical properties, so know your meter’s calibration settings.
Calculating What You Need
Hardwood sells by the board foot: thickness times width times length, all in inches, divided by 144. A board that measures 1 inch thick, 6 inches wide, and 8 feet long equals 4 board feet. Nominal thickness uses the quarter system, so 4/4 stock (one inch nominal) might actually measure 13/16 after kiln drying.
Always buy 20 percent more than your cut list requires. That is the standard overage for furniture projects and it is not conservative. You will reject some boards during closer inspection at the shop. You will lose material cutting around defects. You will make mistakes that require replacement pieces. Running out of matching lumber after investing forty hours of labor is expensive and demoralizing in equal measure.
Building a Relationship With Your Dealer
Independent hardwood dealers reward repeat customers in ways that big retailers never match. Regular buyers get first access to special stock, better pricing on large orders, and advice that comes from decades of handling wood. The experienced person behind the counter knows things about lumber that no book or YouTube channel can teach.
Ask questions every visit. Good dealers appreciate customers who want to learn and will show you how to spot quality, steer you toward better-value species for your project, and sometimes share offcuts from commercial orders that are perfect for small shop work.
Buying lumber well is a skill that sharpens with every trip. Your first visits will feel overwhelming, but each purchase trains your eye. Eventually you walk into any dealer, scan the stacks, and immediately identify the best boards in the pile. That instinct is worth developing because better lumber selection means less waste, fewer surprises, and better finished work.
