Fair sawlog/ veneer grading

[240b]

The hard fact is you will never win dealing with the mills.  Look,  at what other industry does the buyer tell the seller both the value and the volume?  I pretty much have come to the conclusion that if your selling wood, unless its by the ton your gonna lose. Those local mills didn't get where they are by being fair. One forester over there told me my problem was, my expectations in life were to high- to be a logger.  Best just to consider that every tree is just firewood when buying timber..

[SwampDonkey]

When we sold veneer and saw log hardwood, there was none of this moving the prices business without notice. The Columbia FP veneer buyer came and scaled and stamped the logs with a bar code and even paid the trucking. He might not even get those logs for 2 or 3 weeks. The sawlog mills paid what they said they was gonna pay when it landed at the mill yard. Loggers on the ball always called the marketing board to keep abreast with prices. From what you guys are describing, sounds like someone is brokering wood and not buying for their mill. Sounds like the wild west days south of the border.

[chevytaHOE5674]

I put sealed bids in on plenty of Veneer. Many loggers will take the good veneer back to their yards and lay them out nicely on timbers or pulpwood so that they are up off the ground and have good lighting. Then they let buyers come in and bid on them for a few days. Then you get to find out if you got them out not. Sometimes they are sold in lots so winner buys them all for one money, and sometimes it is done on an individual log basis. 

[SwampDonkey]

Our Columbia man came to the woods and the trucker worked with us all and he even went to some spots for 2 or 3 logs. The marketing board staff usually came to roll and buck logs for grade with the buyer. It kind of makes the loggers and woodlot owners a bit lazy on the sawlog and veneer end when it's free.

[madmari]

The firewood market is good and we can pull alot of it. Makes sense, but then the landowner loses.
I had a log broker tell me to get on the maple, the mills are yelling for it. Well, they aren't yelling loud enough. We are a small operation that won't make a big mill any difference, but I'm not selling anymore sawlogs until a fair price is willing to be paid. If there is no demand for lumber, why are the mills yelling for logs? Because someone is making a fortune on the backs of loggers, truckers and landowners.
  I saw the retail  lumber price sheet at the mill I sold my last logs to. Sawing is VERY lucrative when your cost of goods is  so small.

  Dairy farmers are in the same boat. They'll dump their milk in the gutter before selling for a rediculously low price. Hurts to do, but sawlogs on the firewood pile is the same thing.

[beenthere]

I had a log broker tell me to get on the maple, the mills are yelling for it.

Exactly what a log broker would want to say....as he makes money off you by buying low and selling high.

Reading the tales here of past veneer buying were interesting, but in the past there were some great markets for veneer logs. Some to China, some to Europe, and even some needed in the US. Now those markets are way down so the veneer buying game changes big time. What used to work doesn't work that way now.

[chevytaHOE5674]

Because someone is making a fortune on the backs of loggers, truckers and landowners....I saw the retail  lumber price sheet at the mill I sold my last logs to. Sawing is VERY lucrative

I highly doubt sawing is "very lucrative" right now. If it was I doubt that so many mills would be going out of business or on the verge. The mill I buy for is hanging on by the skin of their teeth. The only lumber markets that are really moving decently "here" are the low grade and the pallet stock. And that lumber mainly comes from the low grade logs. Around here nobody is making a fortune in the woods business, not the landowner, logger, sawmill, and so on down the road. 

[Ed_K]

Got a letter yesterday from a mill I sell to.They talked about how Vt was starting to come back from the great huricane and they had lots of damage.All good now so they are looking for hardwood and w/pine.buy all I got.Oh well,I 'm still cutting hemlock.

[SwampDonkey]

Buy all you got, but what is the price? Experience here is the price falls, but they are good guys for taking it before it rots. 

[madmari]

It comes out of the woods free, and the labor is really fun, the landowner is happy to see his prized trees leave, so what's the harm !

[bkellyvtme]

They are looking for maple in a big way.

I think I know who you are talking about. Are they off from rte 139, and the forester drives a VW Bettle??