My bread and butter timber is Tasmanian Oak, as it's plentiful, rasonably priced (relative to the alternatives) and generally behaves well.

My timber purchasing journey has progressed from buying dressed stock in the required dimentions, to framing timbers which I dimension and dress myself. All purchses have been from my local hardware or building supply outlets. I've been paying around $3k per cubic meter. Looking around gumtree I see quite a bit of locally milled timber for $1.5k to $2k per cubic meter that people have air dried over several years. I have a bandsaw, thicknesser and jointer, so have the capacity to use timber that comes in a less refined state. The only reason I've not bought rough sawn stock to date is that I'm a little apprehensive to jump into the deep end of something I have no experience with.

I am pondering how much of a premium I should be prepared to pay for timber I've used to date. I should mention that while it's construction grade material, it is very straight, cleans up beautifully, and I've been very happy with the quality of stock I end up with. As a general rule, I am able to select my pieces, so each piece of timber is close to 99% useable.

Now purchasing stock that has been self milled or milled and dried on site leaves a lot of variables including moisture content, how much stock is useable once knots, end checking and inclusions have been cut out. How much I'll lose removing twist, cup, bows. Naturally I would therefor expect to pay less, buy how much less is the question. Are there rules of thumb regarding the percent of recoverable timber from raw milled stock (or whatever the correct term is)?

There are several commercial saw mills within a couple of hours of me. Is it reasonable to expect a more consistent product from them than buying air dryed stock from Joe Blogs on Gumtree?

Finally, what is a reasonable cubic meter cost for generally good quality rough sawn Tasmaninan Oak / Victorian Ash?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Kind regards,
Lance