Rockman
Sorry to hear about the loss of employment. I do believe that things happen for a reason and that this may be a sign from above for you to move on to a new career such as sawing lumber.
I originally got into sawing as a desire to keep my own wood racks full for my own personal use. Boy was I wrong about thinking that would ever happen. Even though I am not out there pushing lumber sales, the customers keep coming and buying the wood as fast as I can cut it.
Yesterday I had a fellow call me and said that he wanted every stick of hardwood lumber I had in my building. He was going to build a large number of butcher block style tables for a large new restaurant he was getting set to open and did not want to pay the rediculous price it would cost to buy them. He was not kidding. He took virtually everything that was 3/4" of thicker, even a bunch of 4 foot long stock that I had that I thought would be difficult to get rid of. I had about 100 bf of wood in a wood rack in the back corner of the building that was blocked by about 800 bundles of firewood and he even climbed up on the pile and pulled out 90% of that wood as well and added it to the shipment.
This one sale was more than I paid for my brand new LT-10. I got the logs for free, less the cost for fuel and a helper to go fetch them. The firewood sales I got from the flitches more than covered what it cost me to fetch the logs used to fill this order..
Wife was very happy when I came home today with a fist full of Franklins.
I do not saw nearly as frequently as most members on this forum, as we also sell a lot of firewood which consumes much of our time and resources, but after this experience today, that mill will be getting a lot more use in 2012, even if it means hiring more help.
There is definitely money to be made in sawing if you can get the logs at the right price and have an outlet for the lumber you produce. Best of all you gain the opportunity to be your own boss and control your own destiny. Hope this inspires you. Just make sure you do your homework and research both you log supply market and you retail market for your completed product.
If there is anything I can do to help you, shoot me a PM and will gladly share any info and knowledge I have with you to help you out.
Fred AKA Busy Beaver
