board ft pricing

[timberjackpa]

what is a good price to get for rough cut pine lumber or any lumber for that matter? Thanks

[boman1]

You selling the lumber ? You cutting the lumber from your tree's ? You cutting the lumber from customers tree's?

[ARKANSAWYER]

    ALL YOU CAN!   

sorry could not help myself.   I sell SYP for $0.55 bdft for log run up to 12" wide and 16 ft long.

[Meadows Miller]

Gday Tony

Ill give you my mill prices for Radiata Pine in OZ    and Ill convert them into Usd for you Mate 

Pine case Grade/Palletgrade Rom undocked and del within 50 miles $0.37 a bft
Sizes 4x3 ,4x2 ,4x 1.1/2 ,6x1 ,5x1 and 4x1s . 8' ,12' ,and 16' lengths

Pine Garden Sleepers Rom  docked and del as per above                 $0.43 a bft
Sizes 8x2" , 8x3" and 8x4s in 8' , 9' and 10 lenghts

Graded F5 and F7 radiata pine Building Timber .Free of Heart .Rom & Gos $0.56 a bft
Sizes 6x1.1/2" through to 12x4" lengths 8' to 20' also 4x4 ,5x5 and 6x6 posts

Gos Pine Odd or hard to get sizes or lengths are around the              $1.10 a bft

My Gos cypress pine goes for a min of $1,18 a bft through to $2.10 a bft    and a 100000 bft starts arriving next week and ive already got most of it sold in the higher end of the scale 

Im not sure how much my prices will help you overthere 

Sorry I havent gotten around to sending you my phone number yet  so here it is Mate 61 03 54 391 333  the best time to ring me is about 8 pm over your way which is lunch time for me the next day Mate 

Reguards Chris


         

[Banjo picker]

Sorry to get off track here, but I can't help my self.

So Chris I thought phone service had improved, but you mean I can call you today, and you won't get the call till tomorrow. Tim

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

No  Tim It just takes me that long to answer the bloody phone Mate 

Chris

[petefrombearswamp]

Holy crow!
By the time i buy logs in (Hemlock or Norway Spruce) and saw them with my $38,000 machine I have about .50 per bd ft invested. Add stacking and handling ( I only sell air dried) I am  charging $.75 per bd ft. which I feel is  inexpensive. I get a premium of $.10 per bd ft . for 12" and wider.
You guys either have a very cheap supply market or are working too cheap!
Let me know your feelings on this.
Thanks Pete

[ARKANSAWYER]

   Pete,  Poor people have poor ways.

[cheyenne]

Every one here who was getting 50 cents a board foot is out of business. I only cut for myself and I've got $50,000 tied up in equipment and I own 70 acres of timber to pull from.so if it ever changes and anyone thinks I'll cut for 50 cents a foot their on crack.....Cheyenne

[Tim/South]

The guy down the road from me charges:

$175/1000 to saw if you bring the logs to him.

$225/1000 to saw on site.

$350/1000 for pine lumber (his logs).

$600 - $1000 /1000 for oak depending on the quality.

Needless to say I do not even try to compete with his prices.
I thought I could do alright selling lumber for $500/1000 sawing my on logs.
I have gone down to $450 just because most would believe I was ripping them off at $150 over what the other guy sells for.

Right now I have friends and neighbors giving me some nice pine logs free. They just want the trees gone before tornado season rolls in. Since the trees are local and free I guess I will see how $450/1000 does.

[petefrombearswamp]

Cheyenne
I do, however, have to compete with some Amish mills not too far away.
When they are selling, my business suffers.
Pete

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

   Pete,  Poor people have poor ways.

  Arky  Dad Always told Me that Sawmllers had the arse hanging outa their pants   But i had to do it just to find out for Myself   Yep he was rite to a certan degree  
 I make a good living doing somthing I Love and you cant put a price on that  mate Like you said in another post about investment in gear that you could go out tomorrow and spend $1 mill easy but why bother . Im the same way Id spend that then be working 2 to 3 times as hard be stressed out all the bloody time to make sure other people get paid and only make a little more money at the end of the day  
 Im going to probley stay under the 10 mbft per day mark for the rest of my life   because ive got the gear to build an Awsome little mill  that i can upgrade as i go without having to put up with a Bloody bank manager  Ever   as i own everything Ive got  
The only thing that makes things tight sometimes is the odd stuffup or lack of payment but i can get over them On My Own  it just takes a little time to recover   + I like being the Sawyer so any bigger than about the 6 mbft mark and id have to spend most of my time in the office      


Pete if you can sell it for a good price do it Mate  
It all depends on what the market can bare  downhere I use to cut alot of D/f & Spruce about 2000 bft  per week form when i was 13yo that We use to sell green off saw graded at $1.05 a bft W/sale and about $1.50 a bft Retail so it all depends on Who Your selling to  

The Biggest bit of Advice I can give to Any person just starting out in Sawmilling or any buisness for that matter is to work out your production costs at a fair return to you   and then stick to that or above And Never  feel forced into droping below that rate to secure a coustomer as I am usually 10 to 25 % above the larger Sawmills in price But I and my Costomers Know that Ill Allways Beat them where it Counts Quality  and thats why i never have any problem with selling timber

Heres one for You one of my Pallet  customers showed me a recipt for some pine docked and del to them in jan by a large Sawmill $0.18 cents a bft   but it didnt realy supprise me as the framing market has been slow so the 4x4' heart That usually goes into framing is being multi ripped into pallet but it wont last long as they cant keep pricing like that up for long because they are Hi volume Low Margin Producers for a start some times it just makes you wonder how the hell do they do it
but alot of them get their logs subsidised somewhere along the line while the smaller Mills get shafted as usual      

My log costs start at the $0.15 cents a bft at 60% recovery which is about My avverage and Premium pine and cypress is $0.31 cents a bft at the same recovery rate but lately ive been getting around the 65 to 69% in pine on the Lucas  

All prices in USD  

Reguards Chris

 

[cheyenne]

Pete:...The Amish are tough to compete with, they have advantages you don't. I don't envey your position. But there is no sense in firing up a mill if we can't make money. I have a lumber yard that will buy all I can cut. 20 cents bf I'll bet my laughter is still rattling in his head. .....Cheyenne

[petefrombearswamp]

Thanks to all for the responses.
I am retired so I mainly saw for the pleasure of it. ( I am anxiously awaiting the disappearance of the snow here so I can saw)
If I can make expenses and a modest profit, so much the better
Pete

[ARKANSAWYER]

   I do not go into lumber stores offten and when I do it is for nails or bolts.  So the other night coming home from dropping off a timber frame I went into Home Depot.  I am going to have to go up on my pine prices.  They were killing me with 8 ft 2x4's but I sell a 8' 1x12 for $4.80 and their's were $13.89.   Dried and plained mine are only $8.40  So I need to bump mine up a bit.  A clear pine board was $29.98     I have been nailing them up on the side of the saw shed.     Time to make a new price list.

[Cedarman]

Arky, you bring up the point in business, you must know what your competitors have priced their goods at.  If you are higher than your competitors there had better be good reasons.  If you are lower, then you are leaving money on the table.   

This economic recession is the reason you need to charge as much as you can when times are good even though you could do it cheaper.   That is the money that gets you through these times.

[karl]

Like Arky says- I can't buy logs for what I can get 248's at the box store, but I can easily sell pine vjoint, shiplap, s4s for 20% less than them.

I never buy boxstore 2x4 stock longer than 8' Hemfir cause of the squirrelly nature of those small log 2x's they sell- most have been cut with heart on one side and twist like crazy.

 EWC 5/4 decking they sell at almost $15. for an 8' stick($3.bd') with nary a premium piece in the pile ::)we can sell log run decking at $1.50 bd'.

The local yards are more economical and better grading than the box stores on pine and cedar ...go figure.

[Chico]

Your area also may come into play in the pricing ie southern appalachian and northern as the prices of the same species from diff regions can vary greatly imo