It was somewhere outside Barstow when JJM wrote:

I have an opportunity to purchase 200 board feet of "air dried" white
oak for about $1.50 per board foot.

That price ? So get it. Work out what to do with it later.

The wood has been air drying for 11 months

Sounds a little young as yet. But then I've rarely bought timber in
that quantity and started using it immediately. Stack and sticker it
in similar target humidity to where the finished piece is going to be
used, then ignore it for a few months.

8% humidity sounds unusually low that quickly, but then it's a funny
time of year.

Personally I take almost no interest in moisture content at all. I
don't believe it's possible to measure it accurately enough and the
practical effects are better if you concentrate on air humidity and
allowing enough time for equilibrium (read Hoadley for why this
works).

It is rough cut to 4/4 but I have
a planer so that is not an issue.

I'd prefer to saw it to 8/4 first. There's always some cupping in
drying and you lose less timber by flattening two sides then re-sawing
it than you do by having to flatten four sides on an equivalenet
quantity of timber.

You'll be wanting a chip collector too, if you have that much to
thickness. Know any potters ? One has just taken all my oak planer
shavings to use for raku firing.


I want to make a roll top desk and my question is simply am I making a
mistake in not getting kiln dried lumber.

Kiln dried timber is _NOT_ better. For softwoods in particular it may
be quicker (cheaper), more predictable (cheaper) and may "set" some
resins. But mainly it's there to make it cheaper.

If this is your first time using a large quantity of "primo" timber
like this, then a copy of Hoadley's "Understanding Wood" would be a
very good thing to read through beforehand.