Buying a lumber can be quite costly sometimes so it is best if you buy it straight from the source and while it is still green. However if you purchase the lumber while it is still fresh means it can't be used for a while. 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.

After you have planned everything from the project to your desired materials it is now time to make a purchase. This is a matter of locating a local sawmill and asking if they have any lumber of the species and quality you need. Chances are that they will have a pile lying around somewhere that you can sort through and take your pick of the boards. Getting a bit oversized lumber is advisable if you are picking the green lumber because it will shrink when dried.It will not be necessary to haggle the price of the lumber since the prices here are already discounted but if you are frequent customer they might give you better deal

For many good tips about woodworking plans why don't you try going to my personal web log.

After bringing the green lumber home you will then need to dry it. 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.However since most workshops has low humidity it is advisable for you to purchase a thermometer/ hygrometer that costs around $40 at radio shack so you could monitor the humidity on your shop . The ideal would be 50%RH .

One other method for drying a green lumber is by the use of solar kiln . There are a lot of solar kiln plans online. The set back if you want to have it built is around $200. You can place your green lumber inside the kiln to begin drying. The time it takes to dry will vary due to your location, time of year, and other things. But generally about 30-60 days in the solar kiln will dry your lumber down to 6%-8% moisture content. So it will be ready to use right out of the kiln.

Processing your lumber can start as soon as it reaches it's ideal moisture content. First thing you should do is joint one area of your plank. This can be achieved manually by using a hand plane or maybe the quick approach by using a jointer. You can then cut the board to your lose to the final length needed. After you have one face flat you then run the board through a thickness planner. This is for you to have an equal thickness . Once you plane the panel down to your final dimension, then you joint one edge possibly manually or by using a jointer. As soon as the board is planed you can now cut it to the final width. You can do this with a table saw, band saw, or even a skill saw with an edge guide. To set your board to the desired width you can used the edge of the board as guide. You now have a board almost ready for your project, just cut the final length needed and build your project. You're done, and you saved tons of money by processing the rough boards yourself.