I have to replace a rotten sill on one side of my garage. It is a rough cut 4x4 (actual dimensions). Should I try to find unmilled 4x4 timber or buy a 4x6 and rip it down so its 3 1/2 x4?
I havnt had any luck finding actual 4x4.
Thoughts?
My first thought is to use the 4x4 and face it w/ 1/2" exterior ply...
Why not use a 6 x 6 and rip that the size you need. Go to a sawmill and have them cut one to size for you. Search for:
sawmill custom lumber
Add your state's abbreviation to the beginning of the search term.
Rich
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It'll be a _RARE_ sawmill even doing custom work that will agree to cut one or two individual pieces--by "custom" any I've seen mean a specific size/species/grade/etc., yes, but they'll be talking bundle-size minimums in virtually any case.
I've never had a problem having a mill cut custom planking or odd sized blocks of wood for me, albeit sometimes I've had to wait a couple of days before they were able to get to my "small" order.
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I'd sure like to know where those mills are, Rich. I've tried various ones where I was located in TN and VA and no dice was the general rule for anything less than several hundred bd-ft minimums--essentially the equivalent of a hardwood "bundle".
The closest I ever found was one old codger when we first were in Lynchburg (VA) down towards Alta Vista who still puttered around his one-man mill some for a few years, but when he could no longer run the mill himself, it closed and that was the end. Later on in TN, there simply were very few small mills around any longer and their production was essentially all contract--mining timbers or ties or somesuch and they simply wouldn't (as in couldn't afford to) change setups for less than at least a full day's worth of sawyering.
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