Bat House Forum

[flyin-lowe]

For those of you who have a saw mill close by it doesn't hurt to stop by and talk to them. There are three mills near me and the 1st one I went to donated me enough lumber to the front and back of the 48"x48" house. It was all rough cut so i had to do a little work to get it somewhat square but it worked out great. Especially if you were building a smaller house a lot of these guys throw the shorter stuff out. The guy had a huge pile out back of oak and all kinds of stuff. Most of the boards were 6 feet long and he told me that the whole pile was for sale for $2.00 per board but you had to buy the entire pile. I didn't have the space for it so I stuck with the freebies.

[William Bagwell]

While on vacation a few weeks ago I rode around and visited several local
sawmills. Noticed a few trends: The smaller mills have extremely 'rough'
rough lumber. The prices, while very good compared to retail at the box
stores, are actually kind of high compared to larger and better organized
sawmills. Only real advantage is low (or no) minimum and one of them will
even saw my own logs if I bring them in 6' or longer lengths. (I can haul
6' in a pickup )

Cheapest price per square foot (not necessarily board foot) are the mills
that sell to pallet manufacturers. Very cheap, very consistent thickness,
rough lumber. They do unfortunately have set up charges and minimums.

Disadvantage of both is that none of this stuff is kiln dried so it will
continue to shrink, warp, cup, twist, bow, crack, split and all the other things green lumber does much worse than dried lumber.

For the time being I have found a real lumber company nearby. Not a
building supply, not even a small locally owned building supply (I miss
the one of those that closed last year...) but a true lumber company that
sells nothing else except -- lumber. What a concept! Every thing kiln
dried, both rough sawn and planned boards in a variety of sizes and
species. Prices, while a lot higher than the saw mills, are still less than half what the retail box stores get.

Bought some very nice looking rough poplar in random widths for $1.30 per
board foot. Only disadvantage is the thickness, nominal 1" (4/4 trade
size) I assumed it would be just thick enough to plane down to 3/4". Every
bit I bought is a very generous 1" with the thinnest on being a full
1/16th over and most a full 1/8th over. Very hard for me to work with
since I am size constrained by my outer shell. So now I'm shopping for a thickness planner

Will post pictures of my latest 'research & development' bat box in another thread once I get a bit further along.

William

[flyin-lowe]

I too was thinking about planers, jointers etc. but I don't build enough to justify the cost.