Are these wood prices out of line?

[Steve Kinnaird]

Noticed a lot of Gulf Coast lumber yards listed.
I am about 40 miles South of the Kennedy Space Center. In Palm Bay, Florida.
Anyone know of any yards worth checking out on Florida's East Coast?

Wade Lippman needs to bring us a truck load of Maple
I am originally from Olean, NY, but it still snows there ..... brrrrr

[Greg Works]

That's higher than here in the St. Louis region, at least for the domestic hardwoods I buy. I can buy S2S cheaper than this. That said, there are places around here that charge about what you quote for rough lumber. Prices seem to be all over the place. I can often find good deals on craigslist from people who cut their own wood (may not be an option for you). I tend to build projects with whatever I can get a good deal on. If I want to build something with a certain species I wait until I run across some at a price I like.

[Chris Hachet]

Guess it depends on your location. The common woods you listed are about double what I can get them for in WNY...not sure about the exotics.

I can find lots of deals here in Ohio also.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Hmm. those prices 9 years ago are expensive? Seems good to me but it's not like I can drive anywhere and buy wood. This has got to be the oldest dug up thread I've seen... LOL

[Andrew Hughes]

Although it is a old thread talking about wood and prices never gets old for me.
Threads about table saws and sander are boring.

[Jeff Duncan]

".

I've purchased a lot of wood from Owl. If there is figure, it goes into another bin and the price jumps, about double. If it's flat sawn, there is no figure at all. If they noted width is 10", you pay a premium. If Owl says it's 5/4, it's 1" in thickness. 8/4 is 1.75". I don't know if this is typical.

With today's purchase, I paid about $13/bd/ft for 5/4 maple with a minimum width of 9.75". All of the wood had some figure. None of it had any blemishes. Not cheap, by any means. But if I got the same thing from Owl, I don't think it would have been that much less.

What was nice to know is finding hardwood in Florida is not like finding a do-do bird. But the quest will continue...

Just my 2 cents...

Ouch! Well chalk it up as another reason for me not to want anything to do with Florida. Bought a couple sticks of 5/4 black walnut today just to play with when picking up some other material for a job.....$6.95 bf. Not figured or overly wide, but nice stuff. Obviously maple would have been quite a bit less.

good luck,
JeffD

[Julie Moriarty]

On the Alva website, they have a 2015 price list. For hard maple their 2015 price is $7/bdft. One piece of 5/4 I bought was 10" x 97.5" and was priced at $105. That's $12.41/bdft. But this board was definitely not the flat sawn I would see at Owl. It has some figure and the growth rings are much tighter. It's better looking wood than what I would typically see in the basic hard maple racks at Owl.

Owl went to great lengths to grade and separate the wood and they priced it accordingly. Alva doesn't seem to do that. So if I shop smart at Alva, I believe I can get about the same deals as I did at Owl. (I need to believe that or my woodworking days are limited. )

[Julie Moriarty]

An update on the 5/4 maple boards I bought at Alva...

When I got it home, back in February, I brought the wood inside and stickered it and clamped it tight for over 2 months. I then had to move it to another location in the workshop to get it out of the way, so I stacked it without the stickers. Before I knew it, the wood had twisted, cupped and/or bowed, two pieces pretty badly.

I have bought a lot of hardwood in the past, all from Owl and I've never seen wood from Owl move like this. Usually it doesn't move at all.

My neighbors across the street (two of them) buy their wood from Alva. One mostly builds cabinets, I don't think he makes furniture. The other is a carver, some of his work is quite large. The cabinetmaker seems pretty happy with Alva, price not included in that, but he usually buys the wood when he's ready to start the project. The wood doesn't have much time to move.

I don't know why the wood from Alva moved this much but I do know I'm not happy. That wood was almost twice the price of what it would have cost at Owl but the quality was poorer. I do remember the owner saying he asked his supplier for 5/4 maple and the supplier cut him up the pieces he had on hand. There was no mention of kiln drying or other such treatment.

I'm making the wood work as best I can. It's just a waterbed frame but I did want it to look good. I assembled the four sides together the other day and the last corner required some muscle to get the twist out. Maybe after several years functioning as a waterbed frame the wood will find its way back to something close to straight and flat.