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Oklahoma Red Cedar

Started by Cedarman, January 19, 2005, 03:57:48 PM

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DanG

Furby, you are not without assets to offer.  You have a CDL and some trucking experience, right?  As I understand it, one of the hurdles involved in the Oklahoma cedar business is transportation costs.  Could it be that you could get your start in that end of the business?  Just food for thought. ;)
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

treecyclers

Ok, gang, here's some food for thought.
I have been checking with my distribution chain for ARC (Aromatic Red Cedar) pricing, learning what they're buying it for, and what it's going for retail.

Now, here, north of Prescott, AZ, I can dry Ponderosa Pine from "don't know it's dead yet" green to 8% or less in 3 months, air drying it in my carport, where the warm western winds blow through every day, even in the winter.

How can we collaborate, employing our strengths and offsetting our challenges, to harvest, dry, and bring these products to market?
Cedarman, my impression is that you're the man with the plan on getting these logs harvested in a cost effective manner.
I can contribute the milling end of things, which I am working out the logistics of as I write this post.
Furby, if you have a CDL, and can help move the product from the mill to market, I think we may have a viable chain in the works.

Going through the transport brokers for trucking, flatbeds in AZ are running $2.00 a mile or close to that. While I respect that diesel is right at $3.00 a gallon, I think that $2 per mile is a little high, and I know that the brokers are tagging on their 10-20% too.
Furby, what do you think it would cost per mile to haul from the mill, in OK, to Phoenix?

Cedarman, where exactly will we be working?

I spoke briefly with Paul Todd to generate as many leads as I can for supply of saw logs, and he has yet to get back to me with that information. I'll probably call him later today to see how he's progressed with that information.

Knowing these things, is it possible for us to put this all together, and all of us do it profitably enough to make it worth our while to do so?

smiley_beertoast
I wake up in the morning, and hear the trees calling for me...come make us into lumber!

Furby

Having a CDL is one thing, having the truck, trailer, licenses, permits, insurance, DOT inspections and other "stuff", and so on is a whole different ball game!!!
It adds up quick! :o :o

As you said DanG, one of the hurdles is transportation COST, I don't have an answer for that one.

I would probly say the cheapest way to ship that stuff right now would be to post the load on one of the trucking boards.
Would have to have a TT load ready to go with equipment to load rather fast and post for a flatbed and have them bid.
You should be able to stay away from some of the brokers that way.

We do have members with rigs. ;)
One not too far from where ya gonna be milling that might be willing to work with ya.

treecyclers

Furby-
What's the chance that you have a few of those load boards bookmarked that you might be able to email me or somehow get me the links?
I'll be more than happy to do the legwork on this one, to figure out what's feasible, and what's not.
Thanks in advance!!
Dave
I wake up in the morning, and hear the trees calling for me...come make us into lumber!

onionman

Dave.
Have a cousin that owns a couple of trucks  (just runs southeast coast) .One of the sites he uses is http://getloaded.com/ .
Onion

teakboat

Is this topic still alive?  I am in Oklahoma and have been interested in this subject some.

I wonder if there is a way to integrate and market cedar for higher-end uses, rather than lowly mulch.  Love to get high margins!

I was at the Pawnee OK steam tractor show a couple of years ago and they were cutting some very large red cedar logs.  They were very impressive, and supposedly cut just a few miles from there.  They were just running them through a steam shingle cutter, seemed a bit sad to me.

Western Oklahoma banks will not be very interested in sawmill/forestry projects, however there is much logging in the eastern parts of the state, there is a good mix of pines and hardwoods, and some of those eastern OK banks will be more agreeable.

Bank financing is kind of grim, would be great to have enough equity to dispense with banks.

Anyway, I am new to this forum and think it is great.
teak benches - www.teakboat.com

Cedarman

The challenge as I see it in the cedar area of Ok is the lack of a sawmill and logging culture.  There is not a pool of people that understand logging and sawmilling.  Landowners are not familiar with timber values.

We have the chicken and egg thing.  No markets, no big sawmills. No big sawmills, no markets.

There is talk of a decent sized mill going in somewhere in central Ok.  There is money to back it.  This would be great.  I think the first thing that needs to be done is establish markets.  This can be done, but will take some time and effort. How do you market a million feet of cedar a year? 

As I see it the small mills get a few orders, then try to get some logs.  A logger needs a dependable buyer if they are going to invest in logging equipment. They can't just sit by the phone and wait for a few small mills to call once in a while.  The sawmill cant buy unlimited amount of cedar because they do not have a steady market.

With 10,000,000 acres of cedar and in this cedar is 1 to 2 billion feet of nice standing cedar sawlogs, there is ample opportunity.  Talk about a huge untapped resource. My competitors in so In are paying up to 60 cents per foot for cedar delivered to the mill.  There is no shortage of cedar in my area, just people that don't understand the cedar business. 

Since we started grinding, we have 3 competitors.  They have not hurt us at all.  We have sales lined up for our biggest year ever. 

I am in the pink when sawing cedar.

TexasTimbers

Welcome to the forum teakboat!

If you built your own boat we would love to see some pictures. You can post them over on the General forum.  8)
The oil is all in Texas, but the dipsticks are in D.C.

saddletramp

Howdy Cedarman.  Great thread. My partner in crime and I have been working on this very thing in the Kansas flinthills. We are a much smaller operation with smaller ideas. You have really got me to thinking. Has any one mentioned the E.Q.I.P. money avalible to land owners in Kansas to clear cedars? We have been working with ranchers on this, we get trees leave slabs, branches and they get the E.Q.I.P. money and they are happy. Have some real forest comming up and was wondering about asking for some of the money as sheares wont touch most of the trees and no other way to clear other than chainsaw. Question, would you be interested in grinding in central Kansas(Manhattan area) and if so what voulume would it take to justify you moving your machinery to do it? The biggest killer for us is the time it takes to limb out a cedar log. Very low volume per day. Maybe you know of a better way or are you just in to the grinding not the logging? I fully agree with you in that there are many oppurtunities in this for more than one operation. Maybe if smaller mills and operators could band together to meet volume requirements would help to get this off the ground. What brand of grinder are you running? With the new housing market around here there is a very good market for mulch locally which would cut down on the trucking cost. As I see it this problem is here to stay. Too many do gooders want to ban the rancher from burning pastures. Spraying costs way too much, espically when a pasture may be from 600 to 10000 acres. Also as urban sprawl creeps out that limits what you can burn. Would like to talk with you some time, you are a man with ideas. I like that. Steve
Horses dont git broke.Cowboys do.

teakboat

Cedarman, what are they doing with the logs that are getting up to 60 cents per foot, if I could ask?  I suppose only the nicest logs get anywhere near that?  What diameter?

Kevjay, I wish I had a teakboat, I've got an aluminum bass boat!  www.teakboat.com is our business, related to outdoor furniture.


teak benches - www.teakboat.com

Cedarman

We use a Rotochopper horizontal grinder.
Don Queal out of Pratt Ks also has a Rotochopper grinder.  He might want to travel, but I think he is on a 25,000 acre ranch and has several cedars to grind.

We do cut the logs out of trees that will make an 9" log at least 8' long and are stockpiling these.  One tract we left about 80,000 standing feet of sawlogs that were in the hardwoods and didn't interfer with the pasture land.  We use a tree shear on trees from 8" to 24", a chain saw on the bigger ones and a tree saw on the smaller trees if they are enough to justify.  We can cut from 400 to 1000 trees per hour with the saw if they are thick and mostly poles.  The shears is about a minute or two per tree average as you have to move the tree after cutting it to get it out of the way.
When using the tree saw if they are too thick, we use another loader to windrow them.

The ranchers in Ok can get cost share on cedar eradification.

GW with his real nice homemade mill has the scoop on sawing timber near Ok City.
I am in the pink when sawing cedar.

Fla._Deadheader


If a machine such as the harvester type, where it grabs the tree, cuts it off, turns it to strip limbs and bucks, were used on Red Cedar, would it effectively strip the cedar limbs. They seem more "rubbery" than Pine. They don't break cleanly like Pine ???

  I was thinking, maybe some form of stuffer-stripper of Cedar trunks, too small for sawing, might be stripped and sent through a chipper. Bigger pieces sent through a Shaver, and the largest, sawn ??

  Too much machinery involved for this process to be economical???
All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

teakboat

Thanks Cedarman for the information.
teak benches - www.teakboat.com

Cedarman

Cedar limbs are very brittle and shear off nicely with a harvester.  We use one at times in In.  The problem with the field cedar is that they have limbs to the ground. I looked at a Timber King harvester (I think that is the name) in the UP several years ago.  I asked the operator who was delimbing some nasty jack pine to start near the top where it was very limby with big limbs to see how it would contend with them.  It would grab the stem crushing the limbs and stroke to the end.  Then let go rotate 180 degrees grab the tree where it had been delimbed and proceed to the trunk.  It did a nice job, so this delimber would work on any cedar that I have ever seen.  This is the most powerful delimber I have ever seen.  6" pine limb gone with ease.

There is a huge demand for cedar shavings.  American Wood Fibres cannot keep up with demand.  So, someone could open up a shaving mill in Ok and do well making shavings.  Get contracts for the shavings first, the logs can be obtained inexpensively enough.  It would cost several hundred thousand to set up the process properly.  The big thing is that the shavings need to be dried to the right MC to store in the bag.  Dry logs don't shave as well as green logs do, but I think the right shaver could overcome this problem.  Salsco makes a portable shaver.  So if you had smaller markets established first, this could be a good deal. There are portable baggers, but they run to $50,000 and up.  You can also take all the decent slabs and shave them too.
It would take a bit of research and running around lining all the ducks up, but it can be done.  A small bandmill on the side to saw the really nice logs and sell as markets opened up would be a good companion to a shaver.  I think the shaver could run full time.  Ok, being several hundred miles west of any other cedar shaving mill would have a leg up on transportation.

It will take someone with access to capital, with time to do the legwork, and willingness to take a big risk to do this.  It won't be easy.  If it was, soneone else would already be doing it.
I am in the pink when sawing cedar.

Fla._Deadheader


Ed and I looked into a Shaving Mill for Pine. Horse Bedding is a huge market. I had thought about a grain dryer, like for corn. Shouldn't be THAT expensive to operate, if it's used for $2.00 bushel corn ??  Expell chips from that into a Solar "tempering" bin, then bag it.

  I could interested in a "Joint" venture on this.
All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Stump Jumper

can someone explain to us with a little more detail how this E.Q.I.P.money works .where it comes from , who is intitled to it , is it based acres or trees removed ?
Jeff
May God Bless.
WM LT 40 SuperHDD42 HP Kubota walk & ride, WM Edger, JD Skidsteer 250, Farmi winch, Bri-Mar Dump Box Trailer, Black Powder

mesquite buckeye

Has anything been happening with this subject since this thread died?

Seems like a pruning machine to improve the remaining, scattered cedars would be a nice addition after doing a major cleanout. Could generate future high quality timber.....
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

Kansas

There is the potential for stuff happening. Biofuel and cedar oil, to name one. The usual mulch markets. And back in the day, we cut a lot of cedar. There is a bunch of it here in Kansas. There also was, but not sure now, a government program helping to pay for removal to sweeten the pot. We got busy with stuff, and in all reality, you need mill/s set up to cut only cedar. You really need a total disposal method. Take the bushy ones, and chip. Take the ones that grow up under them for logs. You will have to have the right harvester. In places, Kansas has just as good and heavy amounts of cedar as Oklahoma. The problem is to do it effectively, it would cost a small fortune for the equipment. Cedar can be difficult to log. I use to do it myself; in some  stands, it was impossible to drop a tree with a chain saw. A grinder to grind what needs to be ground is 6 figures. Trucks, walking floor trailers, sawmill, maybe two if you get a scragg mill, all the support and harvesting equipment. I don't know if you could cobble together an operation on less than 500,000 dollars. Oh, you could get a little equipment, a mill, use a chainsaw to harvest, and get started down the road. The problem is, there is no infrastructure. You can't hardly buy a harvester and do it efficiently without spending some bucks. There are almost no mills that take cedar logs here. So that requires a mill to process them, and then there is the marketing. Its doable, but to really do it right, will have a lot of up front costs.

ND rancher

Boy would I like to get some of that up here! Anybody have any to get rid of? Maybe in10sity is still making a trip up here.
TimberKing B-20.  Have been bitten by the bug! Loving life !

mesquite buckeye

I have a good cedar stand in central Missouri that we have been pruning and thinning now for close to 20 years. Some of it is getting to be timber size. Too bad everybody around there thinks it is junk. Perceptions are hard to change. :(
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

Cedarman

One of the problems with pruning cedar is that you can develop rot pockets if the limb is not pruned properly.  I have sawn some old trees pruned with an axe that were fine.  Others made for low grade lumber.  If the limb is dead, then pruning is fine.
There is no logging culture or sawmill culture in Oklahoma where the cedar is.  There are 2 types of cedar.  The range land cedar that grows bushy and is not good for anything except mulch or fuel.  The cedar that grows thick so that it self prunes or cedar that has been growing in the gulleys and canyons amongst hardwood can be very fine cedar.  I figure there is over a billion feet of good cedar sawlogs in Ok.  This does not include rangeland cedar.

Where does it stop after having a sawmill?  Need to grind the slabs and edging strips into mulch.  Would you want to plane the lumber?  How about a drying room to sell to commercial woodworking businesses?  How about a straigtline rip? How about a moulder to make  paneling?  How about a sander to put a fine finish onthe paneling?    How about a 2 to 4 head resaw to turn cants into lumber?
Lumber storage buildings to air dry and keep the wood out of the sun?
If you go through 30,000 feet a week, you will need  300,000 feet of logs in inventory to make sure you do not run out when it gets hot and no one would log.
Who is going to do all the logging?  To mechanize would take several hundred thousand in a harvester, forwarder and trucks.

You could start out small with a hydraulic mill and a loader.  Slabs can be put over the hill.  Tractor with winch, skid steer with forks, gooseneck with standards would be good enough to start logging.  Still talking somewhere around hundred thousand to have decent equipment.
Big plus is that cedar trees are cheap in Ok, Ks, Neb.
I send a fair amount of cedar into Tx from Indiana that passes through Ok.
Just talked to a guy in Dallas that wants multiple trailer loads of fencing, fence rails and posts.  Get a contract with a few like that and might be worth jumping in.
If the housing market heats up, privacy fencing will pick up and ERC competes well with other fencing material.
I am in the pink when sawing cedar.

mesquite buckeye

I expect to be cutting down some of my pruned trees this fall. It will be interesting to see what is inside and whether there is rot there..

Cedarman, did you attend the Springfield, MO redcedar conference, I think maybe 5 yrs ago?
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

Cedarman

Quote from: mesquite buckeye on February 09, 2013, 10:39:33 AM
I expect to be cutting down some of my pruned trees this fall. It will be interesting to see what is inside and whether there is rot there..

Cedarman, did you attend the Springfield, MO redcedar conference, I think maybe 5 yrs ago?
I am very interested in what you find out about the wood next to the pruned limbs.

I was one of the speakers  at Springfield.  That was a great conference.
The field trips to the various mills and the panel making operation were eyeopening.
I am in the pink when sawing cedar.

mesquite buckeye

Quote from: Cedarman on February 09, 2013, 12:37:15 PM
Quote from: mesquite buckeye on February 09, 2013, 10:39:33 AM
I expect to be cutting down some of my pruned trees this fall. It will be interesting to see what is inside and whether there is rot there..

Cedarman, did you attend the Springfield, MO redcedar conference, I think maybe 5 yrs ago?
I am very interested in what you find out about the wood next to the pruned limbs.

I was one of the speakers  at Springfield.  That was a great conference.
The field trips to the various mills and the panel making operation were eyeopening.


I will try to post photos and growth distribution information when it gets done. You are welcome to be there this fall if you like.

Also, is anybody talking about another conference??? Lots has changed with the economy since then...
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

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