Value Added - What's the value of up-grading

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

As I de-stickered and dead-stacked some dry pine a few days ago,
I culled some knotty or badly crooked boards. Since I always need
stickers I decided to make a good batch of 36" and 52" stacking
sticks.

As I chain-sawed out knots and lopped the stuff up to carry it into
the shop to rip it on the Unisaw,  I realized how much of what I was
about to cut was now short, but premium grade wood.

That leads to the questions:
     1.    Has anyone done any serious up-grading for sale
            on a retail basis to craftsman hobbyist types?
     2.   What species produced the best results?
     3.    Does a *"package" approach work in this area, in
            other words, packs of various lengths which
            might combine well for an entire small project assortment?

Thanks,                                      *Packs might include...
                                                     Night stand
  Phil L.                                           Head Board
                                                     Hall tree
                                                     Euro work bench
                                                     Hall table
                                                     Etc.

[Tom]

Phil,
The only time I could generate any interest in short boards was when I was an active member of the local woodworking club.  I kept some in the back of the pickup and members wouldl buy a stick or two after the meeting.  All the talk in the meeting was about dumpster diving and free wood.  Soon they looked on me as someone to avoid.  Comments were along the lines of "I can get for free".

I made up little packets of short wood, 20 to 50 feet apiece and donated them to the club for door prizes.  After a year of that and no thankyou, I quit.

I've never been able to generate a market for the short wood. 

One thing I considered was a consignment shelf at the Hardware Store.  The owner was a friend of mine and it seemed like a good deal for both of us.  He started coming up with a thousand reasons why it wouldn't work, one day, so I dropped it.

I've seen it sold at flea markets, but, at give-away prices.

If one could come up with some really highly figured wood, or an ornamental that was not readily available, it might work.  I might even try it again one day.

[Engineer]

Phil, I can't help you much with the marketing part, but I did the same thing with some really gnarly-looking pine boards and wound up with a couple hundred board feet of 5/4 stock that was clear and clean, ranging from 1-5' long and up to 12" wide.  I'm not out to sell it but I think that it's a good stockpile of material for future small projects.  Even resawn for things like drawer sides and small boxes etc.    I don't saw for profit and I have so much lumber floating around that I can cull the knots and splits and they go into the wood boiler and the rest is premium material.

If it's truly clear and clean pine, you might want to try marketing it on craigslist or eBay, as a bundle of several boards of approximately the same size.  You may not get a lot for it but it'll keep you in beer money.  Most of mine is blue stained but I've been thinking about doing the same thing.

[Dan_Shade]

if you can precut peices for projects, that may work... pretty much a higher grade walmart dresser or bookshelf....

that's a lot of work, though, or at least it can be...

[Ianab]

I wonder if something like a kitset adirondack chair would be a saleable item. Cedar would be the wood of choice, but most of the parts are 2-4ft long. You could precut the boards, chuck in a pack of stainless screws and an instruction sheet into an easy to ship pack and actually get good money for those shorts.

Ian

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Dan,

I know one thing to avoid would be doing anything more than
just providing stock, not actually cutting parts for the customer.
As you say, making a true "kit ready to assemble" sort of pack
would be too much work.

Tom,
Your experience definitely shows that such packages would
not be a local market deal.  As Engineer mentioned, some sort
of national reach would be necessary.  The customer for this
would be the high-end hobby guy with little storage space, but
with good equipment to process the wood.

What I can't do is get into too much marketing time.  I have
lots of dry wood now, but want to put my personal time into
my fight with the sedentary work pattern of the piano work
not into store keeping or more telephone or paper work.
Need that exercise!   Maybe an experiment with a high school
internet guru and an Ebay store is in order?  That way you can
reach all the way down to Ianab's neighborhood!
:D
Phil L.              Experiences anyone ?

[dewwood]

I have a shorts rack in my shop where I put various species in lengths from one foot to five feet.  This is primarily from lower grade lumber that I have remanufactured.  I plane two sides and edge one side and charge the same price as I do for rough sawn random width lumber in select and better grade.  It takes time to remanufacture this material but once customers learn it is available they will come in and go right to the shorts rack and look through for what they need.  This works really well for the people who only need a couple of boards because they can look and help themselves and I just measure it figuring every thing to the lower foot length.  When you give someone a 30" board and only charge for 2' they like that and it is too much hassle to figure everthing to the exact inch.  I just lay the boards all out in each length category and measure the total width which makes figuring the footage quick and easy.  The customer gets what they need with very little of my time invested.  I also only figure the actual footage not counting the waste from the straight lining which makes the cost reasonable from their perspective.

This is the best way I have found to market the low grade stuff and the customer gets basically clear wood which is what they want.  Unfortunately I have a lot more low grade than I can ever get remanufactured into shorts so I also try to educate customers on the value of purchasing lower grades and doing their own remanufacturing.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

Dewey

[metalspinner]

If you donate it to a school shop program (do those still exist?) you can write off the full value of the donation.  This may come out to more of a "profit" than selling it outright for little money.  "Full value" means the price the big box is selling it for down the street. 

Remember, I'm musician/hack-woodworker not an accountant. :-\ ;)

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Dewey,
That's a very good approach.   The "package" idea was intended
to use lumber prepared just as you do.

I don't have a store or shop open for people to walk into, such as
your shop, but the idea is still valid.  If I have an appointment to
meet to sell a sizeable amount of wood, I might as well imitate you
and have those shorts ready for "impulse sales," huh?

Phil L.

[saddletramp]

Howdy Phil. One thing we tried was tag on auctions. Know a couple of auctioneers and if they have a small farm auction close to a big city( one with more than 500 people) we have them auction off some boards. Sometimes set in stacks from 30 to 40 bf and 100 bf. Varying results from .30 bf to 4.50 bf. Depends on who is there and the auctioneer. For what its worth.

[ScottAR]

One possible use for 6/4 softwood would be rice levee "spills."  They'd
need to be T&G'd, but they are only about 4' long.  Rice farmers use
them to gate off levee spillways during the flood of a rice field. 

Just an idea from my area.  I dunno how much rice is grown in other areas.

[Part_Timer]

Phil

All I sell is shorts.  This is because my kiln is short 68".  ;D  I sell on ebay, friends, local wodworkers. newspaper, trader paper, 4H.  I trim the boards to clear as possible to make it fit in the kiln and away we go.  Now I don't sell a bunch a year maybe a thousand bf give or take but there is never any left by Christmas.    It can be done but it takes a lot of leg work to get it going.  Farmers are also good customers.  They are always looking for some short boards to build something with.

best of luck

Tom

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Thanks, saddletramp and Part_Timer.
Some new perspective there.

ScottAR,  don't know of any rice farming near me, but the idea
you are bringing out is good - that there are many niche markets
to be found.  As Part_T says,  leg work, leg work.  You have to
build up and maintain contacts on each little market.

I have to cut 600 52" stickers by day's end Saturday.  As I go,
I am saving the premium potions of the oak and ash that I am
cutting up.  Had some that was poorly handled two years ago.
That caused some badly cupped boards.    By the time I get to
600 thicknessed stacking sticks, I should have a little stash of
select and better stuff.  Part of the trick to this is to sort and
to track what you have and maybe take a representative photo
of the material for future sales efforts.

Phil L.

[beenthere]

Speaking and thinking of value added, a neighbor boy just starting out with a family, picked up an old truck and collected pallets around. He then dropped them off at a farm where he had some workspace, and reconditioned them for resale. Had a pretty good business going, but had to rip apart pallets to recover usable pallet boards and stringers.
Seems there would be a place where short, low grade lumber could maybe find a home. Easier to add a new board than try to salvage one off an old pallet.
Outdoor wood burner to take the wood that can't be recycled, and get good heat from it.

That said, I won't be anyone's competition.  Don't know what is being paid for new pallets. This young man made good money doing it.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Some people do that pallet rehab on a big scale, too!
A local regional distribution center for a major electronics store
chain has a person devoted to just reworking pallets!

Phil L.