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milling rates

Started by CDN-woodchuck, July 19, 2006, 11:42:33 AM

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CDN-woodchuck

Hi there

I will be acquiring a Swing Mill from D&L soon and luckily already have a potential customer looking for cants.

Do you guys charge differently for cutting cants? vs cutting a bunch of 1x10s, 2x8s or whatever??

Matt
on an island in the pacific 

Dan_Shade

there are a couple of ways to approach what you would want to charge.

of course you have less saw time making a cant Vs sawing boards, but material handling will go way up.

determine what you need to make to cover equipment amortization, rent, etc, and your time and charge from there.

you can then work backwards from how many cants you can make in a day and determine how much money you need, and charge that way.
Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

Bibbyman

Do you have any competition in the area doing what you plan to do?  You may have to consider that in your pricing. 

If you've cornered the market,  than charge as enough to make a fair profit and still provide a valuable service to your customer.
Wood-Mizer LT40HDE25 Super 25hp 3ph with Command Control and Accuset.
Sawing since '94

CDN-woodchuck

thks for your insight gents,

gonna have to have a ballpark rate in mind first and then see how long it takes me to cut one up,

is there way to guesstimate the workload based on what the client sez he has waiting for me?? he has roughly calculated that he has 1000M3 on the landing??

do I just calculate what I have on the finished pile and produce a invoice from there??

Matt

mike_van

Matt, where I live, I'd get 300.00 - 350.00  a thousand. Depends a little on the logs [small, crooked, dirty,etc] That price is brought to my mill, i'm not mobile. I usually keep a bf talley as I saw, so many 1x12x12's etc. add it all up when i'm done. I can't look at a pile and say "theres 2000 bf there" some can, I guess they've been at it longer.
I was the smartest 16 year old I ever knew.

footer

I charge strictly by the hour plus $20 a blade if I hit metal. I used to charge $50 but since the cost of living has almost tripled in the last few years I have uped it to $65 plus $1.00 a mile one way if I have to take the mill somewhere vs them bringing me the logs. I have been thinking of lowering my hourly rate and charge for every blade used. Sometimes it seems like I spend more money on blades than I make sawing lumber :-\

CDN-woodchuck

the rates per mbf are consistent with rates around here too,  mileage I'll have to think about as well,

also begs the question - all of this lumber can be used to build a shed/barn no problem, but what do sawyers do or offer in the way of grading lumber for use in homes??  -  the building inspector is going to want to see stamps on the wood

is it worthwhile getting a grading certificate or is this too deep in the woods for a sawyer and setting yourself up for conflict of interest difficulties??

Matt
always learning

Gilman

WM LT70, WM 40 Super, WM  '89 40HD
Cat throwing champion 1996, 1997, 1999. (retired)

Gary_C

Yes, the Government "Can-o-Worms" Police will be here as soon as they get done with the oil companies.  ::)

Oh wait a minute. They are not doing anything with them folks either. Maybe they have been disbanded?   Or better yet, disinherited?   :D :D

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

getoverit

Dan_Shade has probably given the answer I would suggest for you. I wouldnt even guess at a price for you, but if you have the log handling and cant handling equipment in place already as well as waste removal equipment, it should be a piece of cake to figure your cost per hour and add a profit margin to it.
I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok, I work all night and sleep all day

Raphael

If you're milling at the customers landing then the slabs and sawdust are his headache not yours.
In this case it may be simplest to charge $X/hr for your time and $Y/hr (or day) for the wear and tear on the mill as all you are providing is a service.  Any additional equipment for handling the cant's can be rented or provided by the customer or your self with a straight pass on of the charges.  I'd have a blade damage clause to cover hidden metal as well.
  Some people charge 'door to door' as a simple way of covering the time and cost of moving equipment.  In my landscaping business I usually charge from when I start to load the truck at home to when I finish loading at the customer's (unless I'm hauling away debris).  This let's me write out a bill right there at the side of the truck as I'm leaving that last day no matter where my tools are headed next.
... he was middle aged,
and the truth hit him like a man with no parachute.
--Godley & Creme

Stihl 066, MS 362 C-M & 24+ feet of Logosol M7 mill

CDN-woodchuck

many great suggestions, thanks for interest!!

I'll try to figure out some way of incorporating all of these components into a pricing scheme,

being a newbie, able to fall back on a fulltime job, will allow me to cut the customers some slack and I'll explain to them that I feel it's important to develop a client base and that I am charging lower rates as some sort of compensation to them for my inexperience,

Matt


Dan_Shade

don't sell yourself short.  only offer a break if charging by the hour

figure out what you need per board foot and stick to it. 
Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

VA-Sawyer

I started out charging 25 cents per BF and after about 6 months the gas prices jumped about 75 cents per gallon so I raised my rates to .30/BF. In the beginning my production rates were pretty poor as I was really putting my effort into producing the best quality lumber that I could.  Once I figured out how to produce straight cuts, then I began to work on getting my rate or production up. During this time I also learned a lot about which logs made decent lumber and which one were not really worth sawing. I lost money on the junk logs as I only charged customers for the decent lumber. To my way of thinking, this was the price of my sawing education.  I spent over two years sawing by the BF. On 1 Jan 06  I switched over to sawing by the hour. It really was one of the smarter business moves I have made. My really good customers that work their tails off helping me and have quality logs that are on bunks and ready to go have seen their cost per BF go down, so they are pretty happy. The only customers I have lost are the ones that have junk wood buried in mud and they weren't much help with the milling anyways.
Overall, I would have to say that sawing by the BF is the best way to start out and get some experience. It is probably the most fair way to charge your customers given the lack of sawing experience. If you are sawing mobile, you will find a lot of variation in the way customers have their logs setup as well as in the quality of the logs themselves.  I think the best way to offset that variation is to get good at sawing and change over to charging by the hour. If you are sawing from a 'fixed base' then you have more control over most of the variables except log quality. I think in this case, just charge by the BF and make the minium charge based on log scale.
VA-Sawyer

carvinmark

This is good advice. I lost my tail trying to mill by the bf. From then on it is by the hour,win or loose,cause I lost by the bf.
PRO-CUT CSM, 084, 056, MS200(rear handle), 025, 017, 395XP, 257, 316, 2094 Jonsered, CS346 Echo,Some macs and homelites and a pile of parts saws.

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