According to the NHLA grading rules, checks most assuredly _are_ defects, and a long enough check will result in the board being downgraded. Whether sapwood is a defect or not depends on how much and what species.
Not going to try to explain the rules here--the NHLA rules are online at
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You can find summaries that may be helpful at
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and
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between them will give you a start.
That said, an experienced woodworker knows that some percentage of any lot of lumber is not going to be usable for any given project and buys accordingly.
For some reas Anyway, if you're at a place which allows picking and choosing, sure, leave it go -- somebody will have a project that needs or can use the two narrower pieces and won't have any problem with it. If you're buying/selecting only for immediate need and need the full length and width of that particular size piece, then it makes no sense to take it, granted.
Given the reference to Lowes, I was assuming you were talking of the BORG hardwood selection of surfaced material, and "rough" was used in the sense of defects, not unsurfaced. For that material, sure it makes sense to only select a full piece as it is select stock. What little experience I've had buying that kind of material there was the basis for my comment of "anything goes" -- it seems to me those decisions are made ad hoc by department or store managers on the spot with no store policy. Ergo, you can try most anything...
Larger mills and lumberyards, however, typically don't like to deal with the individual "pick-through" simply for the reason you realize -- it leaves them w/ nothing but culls (or for graded hardwood that all met at least the minimum for the grade, the lowest of the grade which is the same thing).
Some places do cater to that market and are priced accordingly, some smaller yards will allow it on an occasional "ask me nicely" basis...
If buying actual roughsawn material, someone else noted splits are defects at the grading time, but checks and splits can (and do) develop after that point. Graded/selected to length bundles typically will average a little over the nominal length to account for it. Random width/length is simply that...
Surely, if you're in a location that has trees...and, therefore, mills. :)
Had several favorites, particularly in VA, less convenient in TN but still around. SW KS? Not so much... :)
Interesting the last issue of FWW has a big banner on the front cover -- "Where to Find the Best Lumber" -- the article turns out to be mostly about two guys w/ portable sawmills and a small one-man mill catering to the local trade/craft folks.
Trees (if there were any) would just get in the way of the combine... :)
Born and raised a "flatlander", spent about 30 yrs "back east/down south" (which depended on who you were talking to -- in VA were actually geographically north of here but deep in the south culturally. TN was E TN but in an area dominated locally by imports, not locals, so except when was traveling doing service work in the coal fields of TN/KY/VA/WVA wasn't really _that_ different) so it's natural to see storms building from 150 miles away on the horizon.
I'm not intimate with the cabin of a Sundowner, but I don't think its that much smaller than my early Bonanza. I once carried about 50 board feet of sitka spruce (aircraft grade sitka, BTW) in it. I took out the backs of the co-pilot and back seats in order to do it. Fortunately, none of the pieces were longer than about 6 feet.
Worked fine, but I did have to sort of squirm around the lumber to get in and out of the plane. Would have been real bad if I had to get out in a hurry.
I've seen a 'ski tube' through the aft bulkheads mod on bonanza that allow this to be done. The amount that could be stuff there is pretty limited, for the obvious W&B reasons. Bonanzas (especially early ones like mine) are only nose heavy when they are near empty with only a 95 pound pilot.
I've never seen it first hand, but you should see what the loons flying the bush in alaska do. 2'x8' slabs of 3/4" plywood strapped to the
*outside* of a piper pacer fuselage. Rail road size timbers strapped to the floats of a cessna 205 amphibian. Those guys are braver with an airplane that I will ever be.
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