Lumber widths

[xlogger]

After you saw up your cant and rotate it around to remove the tension and box in the pith. You have different widths of lumber, say 5 1/2" or lots of different widths. How do you sale it (5/4x5x8)? I'm not talking about pine or some cheaper lumber more like walnut, maple, cherry and more.

[Chuck White]

When I get stuff like that with an odd width, I usually count up how many boards I have, say I have thirty five (35)  5/4x5x12, I will convert and refer to it as 17 5/4x10x12 and give the customer the extra one!   

[dboyt]

It depends on your customer.  Technically, 5-1/2" should round down to 5".  My experience is similar to Chuck's.  Never had a customer complain when I throw on an extra board or two!

[WV Sawmiller]

   If just one board I'd round down to next full inch. Usually the customer buys several boards and I just measure the total width and compute bf from that.

[sandsawmill14]

it takes some math but if you saw and edge on dimension you wont have that problem  just figure out where your first cut needs to be for the slab and any extra waste will come out of the slab and any random width cuts will be in the edging pile and most will only need edged on 1 side but the 3rd and 4th cuts are critical to not have any waste. once you figure it out it is no slower than just sawing random lumber

[drobertson]

It depends on just how many are being rounded down, seems this could add up if its a bundle. If I read sawmill right, I do the same,, I shoot for a target from the beginning, and go from there whatever the width may need to be, and like the others an extra board does not hurt, just not a half bundle of them :D

[YellowHammer]

I never saw true random width, but always use multiples of 4/4 hardwood scale drops (1 1/8 + 1/8 blade kerf) for my board thickness to set my width.  With these drops the cant will always be multiples of 1.25" and so the boards will always have the same widths in these multiples and makes it very easy to memorize or calculate the bdft because they are all at the same standard sizes. The cant will always be 3 5/8", 4 7/8", 6 1/8", 7 3/8", 8 5/8" etc.  The good part is that it makes it easy to calculate board foot for our standard 8 foot long board, especially the best sellers.  For example, a 6 inch wide, 8 foot long board is 4 bdft, and at $7 per bdft for walnut, makes a $28 board, pretty easy to memorize.  Since the boards saw out to 6 1/8" it leaves just a little margin on a 6 inch board in the customer's favor, but not too much.  Since we have a 50 cents per bdft price increase at boards wider than 8 inch as well as wider than 12 inch, this technique also gives the customer an 1/8" margin at 8 5/8" as I charge to 8 1/2".
When I edge the boards, I also edge at these widths, so everything is standard and makes selling boards by the board footage very quick and easy.
Anyways, this works for both us and our customers, doesn't shortchange either of us and is very easy to do.  Its all explained to the customers, and they appreciate getting a real 6 inch wide board for their money. 

 

[sandsawmill14]

i do saw ALOT of true random lumber from 4" up to 20" but  i am sawing commercial lumber all of the oak is random width and dead stacked right of the saw   ;D then sent to the flooring mill where they grade it and wide lumber always grade high ??? we can send a stack of 14"-20" wide lumber and it will usually gain 2 grades and will always gain 1 grade compared to 6"-8" lumber  ??? i dont understand unless its because they cut it up to get the fas shorts out of it but i know the check is considerably bigger the wider the lumber so i have been told to saw it wide as i can but i get some complaints from the edger man when he gets the 20+" wide 6/4 lumber ;D :D  i only saw dimension lumber when i am custom sawing all my contract sawing is as i described above