Ground floor idea

[ewaycaster]

I am not new to woodworking, but have very limited experience due to the cost of materials. I am now looking at moving into a more full time woodworking occupation, but cost is still an issue. I have been researching my local area, and have noticed large price differences in woods cut for Furniture use, and woods cut for Flooring use. Can Flooring wood be used for Furniture products?

[Eric.]

Your biggest problem would be the dimensions available. You won't find many wide boards, and nothing that I'm aware of thicker than 3/4". And you'll have to mill it down even further if you want to remove the grooves often milled on the bottom of flooring planks, not to mention making the stock flat again...because it won't be. So as long as you don't mind building furniture with material no thicker than about 1/2" or so, go for it.

[RenaissanceWW]

You may also find that there are some minimum footage requirements to get those flooring prices too. In the lumber industry the price fluctuates wildly based upon the total volume of wood you are buying. Now add to this the topic of quality and grade. Furniture grade lumber is of a much higher ilk than flooring mostly because of wider widths free of defects. Lately rustic flooring has become more acceptable so flooring mills can not only use narrower boards but now they will allow more defects into each piece.

[dcustoms]

It all depends on the grade of the wood. Flooring wood is normally a lower grade depending on what type and use. I would say stick with a lumber supplier. Find one that will sell wholesale to a business that doesn't have crazy min orders and go from there. Where are you located? As far as the price of the wood that gets passed on to the customer. Also as far as going full time. experience really helps for several reasons. First being confidence to be able to complete jobs. Second, the time to complete the job. being very proficient at woodworking will help to get jobs completed quickly which will make you more money and your customers happy.

It sounds like you would benefit from getting a job in a shop to get the big picture of professional woodworking. Eric is right about the flooring stock. You can't make a quality product from sub par wood.

I hope this helps. I don't mean to be down on your ideas but as someone who has gone pro there is so much to it.

Good luck,

[duckkisser]

you can save alot of money by buying strait from a mill some rough stock then jointing and planing it yourself. you can also have a small mill take a tree and cut it into lumber for you that usualy runs prity cheap like .30 a bf. thats what i do but im just doing this as a hobby. if price is a issue instead of making full size furniture try doing carving with a good set of knives and some sharping you can become prity good at carving. or you can do some wood turning. if you have a small area you can get a lathe and then just buy some fire wood and make yourself all kinds of projects. those are the routes that i went since i dont have much in the way of shop area. my only cost was the tools to start with but in the year that i have owned my lathe it has easily paid for itself plus a number of additions and tools to my lathe.

you can do wood working with any lumber you find but if you want to make specific projects like a dinning room table for a job or for your own home you want to buy quality and specific lumber. but if you want to just play around in the shop you can make boxes or jewlary out of old pallets. then sell those and buy new tools or supplies its slow but it does make it so you dont spend your own money buying what you need.

[ewaycaster]

Thank you gentlemen for all the replies. You have given me a lot of good information. I will definitely look around for a good supplier.