The cheapest way to buy lumber is green and rough cut from a sawmill in your area. Your home improvement projects will need to wait for a while if these is the lumber you have intended to use, because this lumber needs to be dried out first. I love using products that I personally made myself but if you have a lot of money to spend and you are in a hurry you can just purchase the lumbers you need in any home improvement shops.

Once you decide what projects you are going to attempt, and what species you plan to use, you can begin the process. The first thing you need to do is procure the materials. 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. But remember this, "green lumber will shrink while drying!" So make sure you pick stock that is a little over sized.The prices of the lumber in the sawmill are really affordable so there is really no need for you to ask for more discount but if you've been a frequent customer they might be the one who will offer it to you.

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After you get your lumber home, you'll need to decide on how you will dry it. One of the ways to dry your green lumber is by piling the lumbers under the sun but making sure that it is protected from the rain you have to also make sure that every layer is 12"-24" apart Each 1" thick board will take a year to dry up so if you have like a 4" thick board it takes 4 years. A lumber can b allowed to dry inside the workshop after a year because it usually has 12%-18% moisture therefore it is not yet ready to be used.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 .

The other method of drying is to build a solar kiln. Plans for solar kilns can be found on the internet. You don't need much to have these built just a couple of hundred bucks and you have it. As soon as the lumber gets home you can immediately put inside the kiln to have it dried. It usually takes 1-2 months for the lumber to dry down to 6-8% moisture and be ready for use. But sometimes the location and temperature matters..

As soon as the lumber is all dried up you can now make it ready for your project. The first thing you should do is joint one face of your panel. This can be achieved manually using a hand plane or maybe the simple approach with a jointer. You can then cut the board to your lose to the final length needed. And in order for you to have a uniform thickness you may now run through a thickness planer. This will make the board parallel to the flat face. As soon as you plane the plank into the final dimension, you then joint one side either by hand or by way of a jointer. Cutting the board to the final width is the next process after you have planed the it to your desired thickness. You can have this done by making use of saw to cut the board. Make sure that you are able to set the edge guide by using the jointed edge for reference. After you have cut the final measurement you can now start building your project. Cutting your own board from scratch surely saves you a lot of money