FREE ONLINE WOODWORKING CLASSES

Buying Wood: Cut List to Shopping List

Lesson #1: Choose The Right Wood, It’s Not All About Good Looks

The list of wood species to use for any one particular project can be somewhat endless, so here's a few thoughts on how you might choose the most appropriate species for your application. Sometimes it's beauty and sometimes its not... and find out why free wood is not always free, and sometimes even painful!

Lesson #2: Challenges Of Shopping At The Lumber Yard

This section is for the real novice that is struggling with the basic terminology and sizing of lumber. D4S, S2S, Dimensional or nominal sizes and why isn't a 2x4, 2" x 4" .. where's the logic or is there any?

Lesson #3: Good & Bad of Buying Rough Lumber

Buying rough lumber takes the conversation of dimensional and nominal sizes one step further.. 4/4, 5/4 or 8/4 who invented that math? Why can't I buy all 8" wide rough lumber and who said I had to pay for wood in board feet?

... now to make it a little less painful we've added a link into the class notes and at the bottom of this page so that you can get your own FREE BOARD FOOT CALCULATOR

Lesson #4: Lumber Grading, Pay Now or Pay Latter!

Now most will ignore the actual quality classifications or "grades" of wood, figuring that if it looks right for your purpose that's all you need to know. But today as more and more hobby woodworkers consider buying wood online, it becomes more critical to understand the "grade". Long distance buying of wood can generate a lot of firewood if you don't know how to specify what you need. Here's a rudimentary introduction to wood grading to get you started.

Class Notes:

Download Printable PDF CLASS NOTES
(right click this link and select "save link as" to save to your computer)

FREE BONUS: Woodworking Information

Calculate Board Feet: Great for anyone that has a copy of Acrobat Reader ( DOWNLOAD ACROBAT HERE). You can save this PDF document to your desktop and then anytime you want to calculate board footage, just enter in the sizes of the wood you need and this board foot calculator it will do all the math!
Top 6 Woodworking Woods: maple, red oak, pine, cedar, walnut & cherry, what they look like, how they behave and what to watch out for if buying these woods online or off! This is to get you started on a building a library of wood tech sheets!
Table of Wood Toxicity: Keep this posted on your wall for easy reference. This is a list of wood and their known health risks. If you have your own experiences, we'd love to hear from you and add to our list.

to get your copy of each of these 3 FREE woodworking tip sheets fill in the box below:

Great Books to Expand Your Interest In Wood:

Taunton's Complete Illustrated Guide to Working with Wood by Andy Rae

Identifying Wood by Bruce Hoadley

Understanding Wood: A Craftsman's Guide to Wood Technology by Bruce Hoadley

Additional Resources:

US Forest Research Center: For everything you ever wanted to know about wood, its use, burning capacity, carbon sequestration, and physical characteristics.. great library!