Finally, some Oak

I finally found some air dried white oak at a farm on the north side of Durham! I got to go up there, check out what this guy had, and buy what I wanted. Turned out, this was pretty fantastic.  He used to own a portable sawmill, so the manufacturer had the farm listed as a local sawyer in NC. Tom didn't even own the sawmill anymore, but he still had plenty of lumber laying around!

12' boards in a 6' truck bed

Such a cool farm!

Lots of oak

needs to dry

My shop is too small!

This stuff was gross. The farm had a fenced off area where the lumber was off of the ground but still uncovered from the weather. And there was still horse poop everywhere so it wasn't always fenced off. Apparently it's been out there for about 2 years. So I need to let it dry indoors, then plane/sand off all of that gray stuff that got on there to get some clean boards. At least clean enough to draw frames with!

The lumber is all 12' long, except for one 8/4 board that was only 9'. The rest was 1x3, 1/6, or 5/4 x 6. Thanks to that much weather exposure, it all needed to be planed down before being usable lumber.

Tom also has some 18' and 20' boards of 8/4 that I need to go back and get. Really want to get one for the mast and one for the keel. They are also going to need some work on the planer though, and that's going to be tough.

Going through the planer, check out all of those shavings

Dirty boatbuilder on the planer

This is my first time working through white oak like this, first time using a planer, first time starting with rough stock. The stuff you get from Lowe's is already clean, straight, usually square, kiln dried and very consistent. This time I have to work up the wood to get it into the kind of shape where I can build frames, then clean it up more so I actually have a good looking sailboat. Total cost of these materials was $105, it was around $1.75 a boardfoot. That's really low, and I am lucky to get this good of a deal. These boards are totally solid on the inside, it's great stuff. A real hidden gem.