Tomatoe Stakes

[JRC]

I had a customer call the other day wanting a price for tomatoe stakes, he's wanting pointed 4', 5' and 6'. Just wondering what others are charging and what sizes you are cutting, 1" x 1" or 1 1/8" X 1 1/8" or larger?  He has a small greenhouse and is wanting a price per hundred, I'm guessing less than 1000 total.

Thanks

[DanG]

I can't tell you what to charge, as I haven't a clue.  If it was me, I'd encourage him to look elsewhere, like to a mill that specializes in stakes.  If you're not set up for it, the production is labor intensive, so one or the other of you is likely to be quite dissatisfied with the price.  If he is a valued regular customer, you might want to do it for him and eat the extra labor cost in the interest of keeping him happy.  If he's just some schmoe off the street that you'll never see again, price him high and hope he goes away.

As a related side note, I was at a farm auction a couple of years ago and saw a pile of 300,000 tomato stakes go for $100!

[Dan_Shade]

a 1"x1"x6' tomato stake is .5 bf, I would start from there, but remember, you have an extra cut to make the stake. 

[Tom]

Kevin_H would probably be helpful here.  He's been a stake man.

[Magicman]

With those dimensions, you would get about 10 out of a 6' 1X12.  Just figure your bf price for the lumber plus labor for pointing.  Sawing his logs, just charge by the hour.  I've sawed thousands for a tomato greenhouse, and for growing lettuce.  I really don't know what the strips were for with the lettuce     but he wanted them and I sawed them.  If the customer wants/needs them, they've got to come from somebody.  It could be a nice little seasonal job.

[Larry]

I used to saw tobacco sticks 15 years ago.  They were a bit shorter and could be about any wood.  Pointed they brought $35/100.  Almost paid for my mill the first few years until the tobacco business went down the tubes.  Trick is doing it fast and efficient.  I had a jig where I could cut maybe 40 sticks per slice.

[stonebroke]

Hudson sells a machine to point them.

Stonebroke

[bandmiller2]

JRC,ask the fella what dimention he wants,and if one or two cuts on a tablesaw for a point is OK.Cluster cut a stack of boards is easy the devel is in the pointing.I'd cut a couple of samples pointing them on your tablesaw show him if he's happy fine I wouldn't buy a pointer for a small order.Frank C.

[Jeff]

Wow, its almost that time of year again ain't it.  This thread here might answer some of your professional tomato stake producing questions.


http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,24747.0.html

[Kevin_H.]

Our hub stakes are 1" x 1.5" by what ever length they want, and run around $1.50 a board foot.
we use the hudson machine to put the pencil point on, before that we used a chopsaw and a gig to cut the points.

We dont do any customs stakes, we are just too busy trying to keep up with the standard stuff to make an odd ball size.

It could work into being a nice side market for you.

[JRC]

I got $.65 for the 5' and $.80 for the 6' last year.  We pointed them on a table saw last year but will probably do it on a shop bandsaw this year(safer), cutting two opposite sides just takes a coupleof seconds.

Thanks for all the replys

[Jim_Rogers]

One of the first products we made at the sawmill when we started was stakes. We always cut them from regular low grade oak and other hardwood lumber, by first cutting each stake "blank" to length. Either 3' 4' or whatever. Then stack these "blanks" up on edge and rip through a bunch at a time. Usually 5 or 6 wide at a time as you can grab up three stakes in each hand to toss them off into a bin.
And any more then 6 wide and the blanks don't always like to stand up straight.

For many many years we just used a chop saw with a jig to cut a two sided point on the stakes. And we called them a chisel point.

Surveyors liked our stakes because they wouldn't rotate when pounded into the ground and this was important to them so that they could have one face facing the center of the roadway they were laying out and creating grade marks on the stakes.

We also did larger stakes 1 1/2 x 1 1/2x8' for staking out newly planted trees. So we called them tree stakes. And with the piece being so large we cut the stake on four sides to make a centered point.

After getting several nurseries on our customer list, we got a pointer machine from Hud-son and it has been a very good machine for many years.

I think I have some photos of my operation in my gallery in an album.

We bundle in lots of 25 for 3' and 4' stakes and the tree stakes are not bundled due to size.

At one time we were selling to three locations, one hardware store, one building supply store, and one backhoe parts department.

Most everyone who comes into the parts department at the backhoe dealership uses stakes for there construction sites, for either hay bales (3' stakes) or layout of grades, lot corners and other uses (4' stakes).

We make thousands of stakes every year, and it seems like we never have any on hand.

Things have been a bit slow this past year with construction being down, but we still sold some stakes and we intend to create a couple of pallets full for the spring.

Good luck with your business....