Accessability to Lumberyard Lifts or Stacks

[Calliste]

When on the West Coast, AKA "The Left Coast", I was able to ask and get access to the lumber yard stack of lumber, and get to Select / Load the lumber that I wanted to work with.

Often, I would bring a 6 pack of beer, and give that to the yard foreman, so he would disappear, or look the other way, while I was loading my pickup, with, the best wood, in the pile.

Can this be done on the East Coast, these days ?

What if I am looking through a stack of Sitka Spruce ? Will I get to pick and choose, or do I have to take what is given to me ?

Sometimes at a lumber yard, that the yard men didn't know me, I would take a look at the stack, and chalk the board ends that I wanted to purchase, and ask them to load the ones that I marked.

Is this practice "OK" to do these days ? What can I expect from, East Coast, speciality lumber yards, today ?

Douglas

[Paul Girouard]

Expect to get told to F7ck off unless your a repeat, high dollar customer.

You come in wanting to pick the piles for 3ea. 2x4's or some such , yer nuts, expect to be treated as such!

[Mrleft8]

Depends on where on the East coast. The yards I go to you don't even need to bribe the yard hands. Come to think of it, unless absolutely in dire straits, I wouldn't use a yard where I couldn't pick my own stock. Except for Florida, I've never had any trouble finding a real lumberyard anywhere I've been.
P.S. Pay no attention to Paul. He's a bitter transplant who gets treated the way he treats others. ;)

[Paul Girouard]

Oh B/S Lefty , the yards here don't let "Joe $hit the rag man" pick the piles , mainly because they throw the crap all around and leave the piles a mess.

I get treated fine , always have , I leave the pile better than I found it , less the good stock, well if you wnata call today standard and better good :( lumber.

D. Fir's cheaper than SPF here these days , in fact the yards not even stock the SPF crap any more , well till it becomes cheaper again.

[Mrleft8]

The other consideration is that Sitka is very much a specialty item here. I only know of 2 yards within 50 or so miles that carries it at all, and that in limited supply. (M.L. Condon in White Plains, and General Woodcraft in New London.) Both places don't know me from Adam, but I've never had any trouble going through the piles and pulling what I was looking for. Why would a yard grunt want to work when all he has to do is sit in a corner with a coffee cup while you do all the heavy lifting? As long as you're consciencous, and don't pig pile the stack, and make sure it's neat when you leave you shouldn't have any problems.

[Paul Girouard]

Hehehhe Skita Spruce :eek: at a lumber yard :rolleyes:, hahahahhaha! Maybe you meant a lumber wholesaler / distributor , but you won't find Skita Spruce , at least around here , at what's called a lumber yard.

Edensaw will , or used to / has let me pick the pile for some Cherry years ago. It was Port Townsend WB show weekend , a tour guide drug a group of tour-eastas thur while I was pulling my stock , he even commented on some BS about a local craftsmen selecting his stock . I don't recall any discount for being "part of the tour" :rolleyes: :D

Hey Lefty is Grossmens , or was it Crossmens, still in business? They / it was a R.I. "chain" lumber yard from the 70's..

I missed that specific lumber part of the org posters question. Forums pretty slow / not much posting going on in the past few days . Pickin the bones here eh !

Edited to add so in hind sight I'd guess a lumber yard wouldn't hvae a problem letting you pick thru thier piles of Skita Spruce , as it's hard to mess up a pile of nothing :-))))

[Mrleft8]

I think Grossman's is out of business. They disappeared from around here about the same time that Home Despot, and Lowe's showed up.

[Thorne]

Carry work gloves and a measuring tape, look professional, and buy from places that let responsible buyers sort the stacks.

[BrianY]

I've shopped at all sort of yards here in Massachusetts - from small sawmill operations to specialty hardwood suppliers and small to large lumberyard chains and have never had any problem sorting through lumber stacks to get what I want. On the very few occasions that someon has approached me with the "can I help you?" line, they've been very helpful once I explained what I was looking for and what I was going to use it for.

re: grossmans - they died out as a serious source of lumber about 7 or 8 years ago. They're still in business as a chain of "outlet" stores selling warped pressure treated lumber (I'm serious - it's all warped!), random windows, doors, cabinets, etc. and other bits and pieces that seem to have fallen off of a truck someplace. It's the kind of place you drop by every now and then looking to see what arrived recently, but not the kind of place you can count on to have what you need at any given time.

[Calliste]

Hi All,,,, T Y , for your replies.

I have been out of Country for 11 years, and I wouldn't be needing a new bowsprit, if that 2004 Asian Tsunami hadn't trashed my boat.

For my own reasons, I choose to replace my damaged Sitka bowsprit with another of the same species, and my boat lets me know it deserves nothing less.

In the past I spent many $ in West Coast speciality hardwood lumber outfits, from LA to WA.

I tried to order a new Sitka 6 X 6 X 12' Spar grade, from Pacific NW, by email, but when I said that I needed it shipped to S'pore, they dropped the order, right there !

So, now by an unexpected quirk, I find myself in VT for 3 months,,,, ah ha, says I, a new timber is top on my list.

For Paul,,,, if I were in the PNW, I would get myself right over to Fred Tebb & Sons , in E Tacoma.

For Mrleft8 , Thorne, and BrianY ,,,,, T Y for the confidence and advice ! I need it !

Douglas, S/V Calliste

[Mrleft8]

Ah..... Well....... Vermont...... That's a horse of a different color! Gimme a shout when you get there/here and I'll see if I can have something worked out for you... Where in VT? My sister and sister-in-law both live there, as well as about a million friends.... OK I exagerate.....999,999 friends.... ;)

[Calliste]

Ahoy Mrleft8, I am currently located in Williston, the outskirts of Burlington,,,
My wife has a rental car, that we expect to use to transport the Sitka to a local boatbuilder, who will surface plane the stock for glue laminating into a timber.
We are willing to drive 6 hours out, in any direction, to find either 4/4 X 6" or 8/4 X 6" spar grade planks, 12' long.
I may soon be contacting a Wood Co., on Agusta Rd., Washington, Maine, a source mentioned to me by the local boatbuilder.

[Mrleft8]

If I was you, I'd call M.L. Condon. They have a yard in upstate NY somewhere as well as the yard in White Plains. If they don't have it, they can order it for you.

[Torna]

Back in 1994 (120:110), our Host did an article on Dexter Cooper, a mast builder in Hartland, VT. He might be a good source of info on where to get Sitka here in VT. Googling him turns up his phone number (also in the article).

-leif

[Calliste]

T Y, every one, for the advice and information. I did find the Sitka Spruce that I was looking for at ML Condon in N Y.

After freely picking through their Sitka bins, I removed the pieces that I needed and restacked the bins carefully and neatly, as per Paul's advice.

The sales Ladies there said that they didn't have computers yet, but expect them next year,,,, so that is why I couldn't contact them by email.

I would go there again and I would reccomend ML Condon to my friends in need, but it rubbs me wrong to have to go to NY City to purchase wood.

Many Thanks again to this Forum,,,,,,, Douglas , BCC Calliste 6/14/08

[Mrleft8]

That's odd.......... They didn't have any Sitka in their upstate NY yard? Last time I was at the White Plains yard (8-9 years ago) they had a nice, if pricey, selection of Sitka. And yeah... They're still kinda operating in the dark ages, but that's OK too....

[Calliste]

Hi Mrleft8, ML Condon does still have the yard in Stormville, NY, but our enquirey by phone went to White Plains, and the sales Ladies there.

I liked their helpfulness, and they told me that they kept their main stash of Sitka, at the warehouse in Stormville, but they left me with the impression that they only used their Sitka stock in Stormvill to replenish their bins at White Plains, or to supply special orders, to ship somewhere else.

She didn't give me the option to go to Stormville to search through the stock there, but led me to think that the outlet yard for Sitka is only White Plains.

Many Thanks for your help ,,,,,, Douglas

PS: The price I paid for hand selected, FAS "by my grading", 8/4 X 6 X 20' Rough KD , was $ 7.50 per bdft.

[Jim Ledger]

The Stormville facility is where you want to go, but you'll need a decent sized order before they'll let you go there, . If you have a request for lumber that they might not have on hand in White Plains, they'll bring a selection down from Stormville for you to choose from.This might be your best bet. White Plains is very hit-or-miss and a lot of the stacks are very picked over.

[Mrleft8]

$7.50 bf sounds like a fair price retail. That Sitka is a long way from home...

[Dusty Yevsky]

I like ML Condon in White Plains because it's close by and they always have what I need but they sure do have some quirky business practices. As pointed out, no computers and no website. OK, not everyone's up to speed on that. But wait, they don't take credit cards. I understand not giving up the 2% to the card companys but the vast majority of merchants take cards for a reason. Lastly, no weekend hours! I've been to many yards over the years and this is the only one I've ever seen that is not open at least for a little while on Saturday. My boss just loves it when I take off work to go to a lumber yard. Sorry for the thread drift but I find these circumstances just plain unfathomable compared to industry wide practices.

Dusty