Advantages of on site mill

[chain]

It hs been suggested to this Tree Farmer to allow a 'on site' mill and market products from sawn logs from the forest. Sawn ties, timbers, flooring, etc. I know there use to be agreat many  portable mills years ago. What are the advantages to the forest landowner, disadvantages? Under what circumstances would the pro-forester allow or suggest 'on site' milling?

[ARKANSAWYER]

  Well it cuts down on trucking cost and to some extent handling cost of moving the logs around.  Also if you should be in hardwoods and start getting alot of bad logs they can be culled and sent with the pulpwood easier.   
  Down side is you will have to burn fuel for power and have to clear out a larger area for staging.  You have more people on site so there are other concerns there.   More equipment is left out in a less secure area when not working.  No protection from weather.

  Do not see a real advantage to it.

[Ron Wenrich]

I remember doing a cruise on a site a good number of years ago.  There was a huge pile of slabwood that was there from the previous cutting job, a good 30-40 years before.  Great place for snakes.

What kind of numbers are we talking here?  Is it a small job, or a big job?  A small job would be only a few Mbf.  I could see some advantage to it, but labor costs are a large portion of the portable jobs.  They don't really have sufficient equipment to move the kind of material that a stationary mill can.  That increases the cost of production and lowers the amount of money that can be made. 

The stationary mills also make money by moving their waste material.  Chips and sawdust are often a profit center for the larger operations.  I don't know what your markets are like, but we would be looking at the rate of about $70/Mbf in waste wood that would get marketed.  Will the portable operation have that capability?

The time of year can play into your decision.  If you are cutting lumber in the summer months, you have to worry about staining in your lumber.  That means you'll have to sticker the lumber if production is slow, or you have to move the lumber quickly to market.  If it stains, hardwoods can drop from FAS to 2 Com overnight. 

Know the numbers before you go into this.  Veneer quality material can never be sawn for a better profit.  Sometimes the numbers sound good until you get that cutting price involved.  Is the sawing done on shares or do you pay the mill a certain $/Mbf?  Who does the marketing? 

[beenthere]

Years ago, the advantages were that most of the material sawn stayed on the land, and was used to build buildings, feeders, fence, etc. Covered for the difficulty of transporting logs to a mill.  That is from what I remember.  

Not sure how marketing products would work from "on site" if that be in the woods. Would require some pretty major investment in dry kilns, wood shop, plus warehouse and retail sales area.  I'd think.

[Ianab]

Smaller jobs, generally it would not be worth bring in heavy machinery for 1/2 a truck load of logs.

If the lumber was going to be air dried and used on site, again usually a small scale operation.

In this part of the world a single large native tree may be worth tens thousand dollars, but has to be extracted from the bush with the least damage top the surrounding trees. Hauling a swingblade mill in is easy enough and sawn boards can be hauled out with much lighter machinery. Farm tractor and trailer etc. Even helicopter if access is difficult.

For a large harvest the greater effiencies of heavy machinery and trucking to a high production mill are the only way to go.

Ian

[chain]

Ron, you made a statement that really got my attention,"veneer quality material can never be sawn for a better profit" . Afraid I would lose a lot of value from on site mill. In this area the tie market seems to drive the market, also a higher percentage of timber is pallet grade. I'm the owner of timber, convenience would be for the logger-mill I'm assuming. I think if pine were paying more I would be interested, less waste. 50-100,000 bf. int. could easily be had.

[tughill]

I'm not sure what difference it really makes.  If you are a landowner/timber seller, sell to whoever will pay the best for the logs, as long as they do an acceptable logging job.  If they think they can make more $$ sawing lumber at the landing, well good for them.

[chain]

I'm not sure what difference it really makes.  If you are a landowner/timber seller, sell to whoever will pay the best for the logs, as long as they do an acceptable logging job.  If they think they can make more $$ sawing lumber at the landing, well good for them.

  It's the management thing that would be decisive as I usually mark timber for improvement cuts. Whereas most of our loggers would want the diameter-limit cut to maintain a mill. Some goes to chip , some to pallets. Lower percentage to grade and ties. Lots of things going on in this area also, like oak borer has severely damaged the older stands of red oak. Learned the hard way, as we took out the larger damaged oak, and left a  smaller more heathy tree....well, in two or three years those residuals began to die. A clear-cut would have been more conclusive.  Now, the die-off with pine threatens...with very little market.

[rickywashere]

i would think the lumber would be much easier to transport to a area to be dried or sold , and the scrap(slabs) could be burned... in safe  setting. also you could be more selective with cutting say you had a 4 foot clean log now what is more cost effective moving that chunk or sawing on the job site nobody i know would haul a 4 foot log very far to cut it , and most would just cull it .. but having the mill there they would saw it in a heartbeat....

[Brian Beauchamp]

  Now, the die-off with pine threatens...with very little market.

What is the threat to your pines there?

[chain]

We are assessing the problem, unknown if insect or soil/root or both. Seems two diseases may be killing off pine; another cause could be root damage from recent very light thinning.[3years ago] The site is classified excellent for SL pine.

[rcanderson1968]

Chain,

One thing to think about that hasn't been mentioned yet is that in addition to saving on transportation costs, you would be selling the material on a finished lumber scale versus a log scale.  I don't know what species you have but if it's hardwood, the overun might be somewhere between 10 and 20 percent.  This means that when the logs are scaled you may, for example, have 100,000 board feet of logs.  When the logs are converted to lumber, the sawmill typically ends up with more than 100,000 board feet.  The extra amount is called overrun.  If the overrun averaged 15 percent, you would have 115,000 board feet of lumber to sell as opposed to 100,000 board feet of logs. 

To take my example further, let's assume its hardwood and let's say the going stumpage rate is $375 per thousand.  You would get $37,500 for selling the timber while still standing (100,000 BF x $375/MBF). 

Now let's assume the average sale price of the lumber produced is $625 per thousand, fob your woodlot.  You would get $71,875 (115,000 BF x $625/MBF).  But you would have to pay a sawyer for milling and a logger for logging.  Let's say you pay the logger $80 per thousand log scale (100,000 BF x $80/MBF = $8,000) and the sawyer $125 per thousand lumber scale (115,000 x $125/MBF = $14,375).  You would still net $49,500 instead of the $37,500.

Of course a complicating factor is that you would have to be able to market the lumber yourself.  I did a project like this about 15 years ago in WI and was able to find a local company that bought green railroad ties and then treated them and sold them to railroads.  I also found a local custom dry-kiln and millwork manufacturer that bought and graded all the lumber for use in their operation.  I am not a professional grader, but I was satisfied with the grade I received from the dry kiln guy.

[chain]

Your figures are certainly interesting. I've questioned myself about the grading of sawn lumber vs. saw log pricing,  seems most estimates of standing timber is figured on international scale in this locale. Grade logs are usually sold on Doyle scale off the log yard. Another factor I have is sawlog sized short-leaf pine of little market value. My forester mentioned the fact, 'if this timber was located in Arkansas,' I could get twice the going bid.