Buying rough stock - do you take a block plane?

[patrick conroy]

Just starting buying more rough stock and, so far, I like it.

I find a tremendous satisfaction in revealing what's underneath. A woodworkers version of Christmas, I suppose.

What do you take with you when you go to the yard? I think I saw a show where someone (DJM) took a block plane with them to plane away enough to see some grain underneath.

Obviously - he said you need to ask permission first. But I'm not sure if that's a tad pretensious or not.

What tips/tiplets do you use to select your rough stock?

Thanks!

[Leon]

For me, buying rough stock costs me more than buying S3S. Let me resay that. I can save about 15 cents per BF buying rough stock over S3S. The time involved in getting the stock down to S3S is not worth saving 15 cents per BF to me and I can quickly see what the board looks like if it is already surfaced. YMMV.

[TWS]

Patrick, if the shop is not too busy you can usually ask them to 'skip dress' the pieces you're looking at. This is simply a shallow pass on their thickness planer so you can check the grain and color. I've never been charged for this service even though I am not a high volume customer.

TWS

[George]

If you're buying a board, sure. If you're buying forty, go with grade, and learn to recognize figure by the conformation of the sawing fuzz if they let you pick and choose.

I go to the sawyers who are generous with the BF calculations, and ask them if they've got any fancy stuff.

[patrick conroy]

Here it's about a 50 cents to a buck or more "depending..."

Yeah - today for example, I needed one board quickly to finish up a project and had to know it would fit in with the others. So it was off to Paxton's for some S3S.

[patrick conroy]

Thanks - one shop offered to do this. I didn't know what they meant, and now I do!

[patrick conroy]

Grade as in "FAS", "Selects and Better"?

[Leon]

In that case I would probably do all of it my self.

[The Davenports]

I try not to be an ass about it, but he the sawyer wants me to buy the lumber, he better not object to strongly about me wanting to make a small shaving or two. If he does object without a pretty good reason, I can and will go somewhere else to buy.

With that in mind, I also do very few "spot checks" compared to how much I'm buying. As in a spot or two on two or three boards out of 30 or so...in that ballpark, anyway.

Mike

[Andy Dingley]

Notepad, big tape, spokeshave (works better than a block plane). The yard I buy from is far enough away that I can't just nip over there. So whenever I am there, it's worth noting down anything tasty they have in for the next project.

Beer. A regular feeding of it to my friend the penurious sawyer. I probably save a little money by doing this, but more importantly it's me who gets the phonecall when he finds something particularly attractive and wants to shift it.

[George]

[patrick conroy]

Brand? Temperature? Bottle, can? :)