Wood Grade?

[Christopher Ford]

I was shopping around for Soft Maple here in the Dallas area and I was asked what grade I wanted the wood...

I have no idea... =)

What do I need to ask for when I shop around at the lumber yards?

I figure I'm going to ask for rough and not surfaced since I'll be planing the boards.

Thanks in advance for your help!! =)

[Bombarde16]

In broad terms, grade describes the largest, prettiest, straightest piece that you'll be able to get out of a board. High grade boards are expected to be straight, long, wide and free of defects such as knots, splits, bark, etc. As you move down the scale, the number of defects increases, thus the size of the largest possible clear piece you can get also decreases. Naturally, supply and demand conspire to run up the price of high grade lumber. NB: This is not a function of whether the wood is rough or surfaced. Buying wood rough will save you money, since you're not paying the yard to feed the boards into a planer. But the grade of the boards hiding under all the rough saw marks is something else.

The grade you need therefore depends on what you're making. If you're building a tall cabinet and need long, straight clear stock, then you'll need high grade (i.e. FAS or "Firsts and Seconds) lumber. If you're turning pens and peppermills, then you can save a lot of money going with lower grade lumber.

So the first question you need to answer is this: What are you building?

[duckkisser]

i usualy go to this when i need to remember something about lumber

http://www.ahec.org/...radingGuide.pdf this shows how much of the board is good and the grades i use this to help the kids in my classroom

http://www.fototime....1271B0/orig.jpg this shows the cuts

if you get a rough cut wood they have to skip plane it to find out what grade of lumber it is but after that you can get it and plane it to the thickness that you need.

[Kevmc]

Soft maple comes in either select or better or common. Select or better generally has longer wider boards that are clear (no knots or other defects). You need long board for the top of the workbench but you can also hide a lot of defects in between the two end board of the top laminate. You can also hid some knots on the wood for the legs so long as the knots don't go all the way through. However you also want to make sure the knots do not impact the structural integrity of any of the joints or strength of the bench. My mill mostly has select or better so thats what I used. In my area the price difference between select and better and common is about $1/foot and overall the savings considering the amount of wood I used compared to the time and effort didn't justify the lower grade. I don't know if there would be a lot of waste on common soft maple that would eat into your savings on common wood. having said that so long at the knots are not impacting the integrity of the bench, its just a bench and some knots are not going to impact the usefulness of the bench, especially if they are not on the top of the bench. You could also fill any knots that really bother you. I would just stay away from any boards that would result in knots on the top of the bench.