Home Depot scrap bin

lol no but that’s usually true as well

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Even Rockler is cheaper than Home Depot for white or red oak. I paid $5.49 per board foot this weekend for two nice 10 inch wide 3/4 oak. Home depot generally runs $6.50 to $9 per board foot depending on width.

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boy I wish you were local to me. There are no mobile saw mills in my area (I’ve looked extensively). I’ve resorted to building my own saw mill to finish out the hickory and oak I have drying.

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I buy tons of cedar from lowes

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Just found a good mill about 90 minutes from me. Unbelievably good prices. Cherry, hard maple, and red/white oak $2.50-2.70 per BF, and Walnut $6/BF, also have a bunch of other species. They have 4/4 and 8/4 in most and even have a ton of kiln dried live edge slabs. Now I just need to get some free time on a Saturday to head up and stock up lol

I use HomeDepot wood (poplar/pine) for the test runs while I tweak carves. I get uncommon/exotic small cuts at Rockler, but there isn’t consistency in size or type for most of those and so if I find the perfect hardwood for a project, I don’t want to risk ruining my one shot at it, no matter how cheap it was.

My most recent use was coming up with a design for a pen case that I was going to be giving as a gift along with a turned wood pen that a friend had made. I have few woodworking tools besides my x-carve, so I made the cases entirely via the CNC, utilizing several bit changes. I was using Easel, which meant that I had to have a separate file for each bit, and I had to keep track of changes between the files and how things interacted. I scrapped a lot of wood as I was figuring things out, but I didn’t feel bad about that because it wasn’t my “good” wood from Rockler/Woodcraft (regardless of whether it was cheaper or not).

I plan on moving onto doing some sign work and between painting and staining and the stuff from Home Depot will be perfectly fine for that. The main advantage, beyond (often) the price, is the level of effort to get Home Depot stuff. I can double up buying wood for my CNC with getting things for house needs.

Here’s some pictures of one of my semi-final attempts at a pen case, in Home Depot wood (with the pen). I used 4 different bits to make this, cutting the top and bottom at the same time from a single board. I don’t doubt that there are easier ways to do it, but I used the tools/software at my disposal at the time.

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