> I live in the Central Michigan area. I need about 60 bdft of
> western red cedar rough or in strips. Does anyone know of a local
> source? Thanks.

Check the local lumber yard. Western red cedar is very common in 4/4 and 5/4 size and used for deck building, and decorative house siding.

The material for siding that I have seen is typically a nominal inch in thickness (4/4) and will actually measure about 3/4 or 7/8 thick, and supplied with one of the wide faces planed smooth, and the other in left as a rough surface. This is frequently refered to as `rough sawn' cedar siding. I have seen this sold with a tongue and groove milled on it. For making cedar strips you will lose a little bit when you cut off the tongue and groove, but not much.

If you have a planer this may be a good material for you. Plane that rough side smooth and you should have a plank that is about 3/4 thick which you can rip saw into nice 1/4 or 3/16 strip. Alternately, if you plan to bead and cove your strips, After ripping the strips, first run the rough side through your router to make the bead, and the router will remove the fuzz, and leave a nice straight edge for when you cut the cove in the opposite (formerly smooth) side.

Since the frame for my current project called for pieces that measured 7/8 inches I have been buying the W R Cedar usually used for decks. It is sold in a 5/4 size that measures 1'' in thickness. I usually get nominal 6 inch wide boards in 10 or 12 foot lengths. Since these are sold for use on decks they come with the edges rounded, instead of square. When I would rip this for strips the first strip that came from each plank was ( I first believed ) a total waste because of the rounded edges. I'm changing my mind about that now, though, as I am finding plenty of uses for these pieces. Three that come to mind are: 1.) I use these instead of ``good'' strips when aligning the stations on the strongback. 2.) I ripped some of them again and got 1/2 x 1/4 strips for areas where the strips had to bend a lot, and uses two of them side by side, instead of trying to force in a single 1 x 1/4 strip. 3) These are the strips I snap off to convenient length to use as mixing paddles for the many batches of epoxy.

When you rip the last strip from the plank you tend to have just a bit of scrap, and the sawblade tends to eliminate that rounded edge for you, so I prefer using the rounded edge material deck material to the tongue and groove siding material. I discovered another way around those rounded edges recently when I needed some 16 and 20 foot strips. Instead of cutting 1/4 inch strips and scarfing them, I ripped the 5/4 x 6 board in half, giving me two boards that were about 2-3/4'' wide. Each had a rounded edge, from the supplier, and a square edge from my saw. I cut a long taper on these and scarfed them, aligning the square edge. there was a little error on the opposite side where the rounded corners did not match perfectly, but that disappeared when I ripped nice 1/4 strips from these longer boards. As opposed to scarfing individual 1/4 strips, these wider pieces needed fewer clamps, I could glue the equivalent of 7 strips in the time it would take to glue one from 1/4 pieces, and the final result gave me straghter pieces. On the downside, scarfing a 3 inch wide piece of wood gave me two 3-foot pieces of scrap, and the final strips from a 10 foot 1 x 6 would be about 17 feet long.

When buying this lumber, I found a lot that had knots in the worst places. Cure: Buy more lumber than you think you'll need.

Since I'm buying building lumber rather than wood cut specially for boat builing I have to sort through the stack to get get just what I want. For siding and decks, they cut boards in a pattern that will yield the most rectangular pieces from a relatively round tree. This is not the same as the process that yield ``quarter sawn'' planks, which are preferred by some. However, there are always a few planks cut in such a way that the grain in them runs in the same direction as it does in quarter sawn lumber. Look at the ends of the planks and find those which have the grain running mostly like this: (((((((((((( I can't remember exactly what I payed for the last bunch, but I think it was about $6 to $8 US for a 10 footer, and just under $8 to $10 for a 12 footer. For nominal 1 x 6's a 12 foot board would supply 6 board feet at a cost of roughly $1.33 to $1.66 per board foot. I rip my strips using a radial arm saw. I extend the fence about 4 feet so that I get a better surface to guide the long planks against. I use a thin-cut 10 inch planer blade. I get a lot of sawdust (which I save in plastic bags to mix as filler with epoxy). Wear at least a cheap disposable mask to avoid inhaling it the sawdust. I try to have a helper when I do this as the long strips can be a handfull for one person. When I have to do it alone I use what ever I can find to support the ends of the wood, and put that about 8 to 10 feet away from the saw. I get about 14 strips ( sometimes 15) from a 1 x 6. Hope this information helps. Paul Jacobson