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Dreaded pallet wood? (or a blessing)

Started by fencerowphil (Phil L.), February 24, 2008, 08:35:30 PM

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fencerowphil (Phil L.)

During the last few weeks I have enjoyed a mixed blessing:

Met a good guy and new dependable customer who wanted 5/8"X3.5" top boards
and 1.25"X3.5" stringer boards.   He has bought everything we cut for him and paid
on the spot.

Here is the scenario:
We were cutting two other orders:  big beams and trailer deck material.  Both those
orders, of course, leave "side wood" of a very high grade, which tickled the pallet
wood customer to death.  "It's the best wood we have gotten," he says.  Of course,
since he is getting top grade stuff for his pallets!  My log costs were negligible, so the
deal has worked:  .40 per bd.ft. on the pallet wood; .90 on the decking; and 1.20 to
1.40 on the large beams.   Having all the side wood go to pallet is on the one hand a
bit rediculous (being very high grade), but very practical since all we do is take the
big wood for the other orders and load the pallet wood customer's trailer as we cut.
He always has one right beside the mill and we load it directly onto it.  This mix of
product is very simple to do with a swingblade - just whittle away!

New scenario:
While this has worked well, due to the overall good return and due to unusually low
log costs,  this sweet deal will grind to a halt, when higher log costs start soon.  It is
likely that I will be going to about .17/bd.ft. soon on log cost.

The question:
How does one really cut JUST pallet wood boards and make a profit?   It may come to
that, when I don't have the other supplemental, higher-profit sales to work with this
good customer's orders for pallet boards.  Even if that situation only lasts a few days at
a time,  it will be painful with my present set-up.

Phil L.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

shopteacher

I don't cut for pallets, but just a thought, can you buy lower grade logs for cutting the pallet stock from.
Proud owner of a LT40HDSE25, Corley Circle mill, JD 450C, JD 8875, MF 1240E
Tilt Bed Truck  and well equipted wood shop.

Brad_S.

Pallet wood and profit are two words that don't go together in my book. I know those that do process it on a large scale use a scrag mill to get a 2 to 4 flat sided cant in 1 or 2 passes and then send it through multiple head resaws. IMO, the small mills most of us run just cannot produce pallet lumber profitably.
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." J. Lennon

Dave Shepard

It's a shame to see those clear jacket boards going to pallet wood. Perhaps you would do better to market them better, than to try to get into the pallet business. Isn't pallet wood usually made from the cant left over from a grade sawing operation?


Dave
Wood-Mizer LT40HDD51-WR Wireless, Kubota L48, Honda Rincon 650, TJ208 G-S, and a 60"LogRite!

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Brad S...

When I consider that I can cut a 20' 4X4 and get $16.00 - $18.00  for it , while the same
amount of saw time is required to cut a 20' pallet board which might bring just over $2.00
for that same saw time,  I have to agree with you:
                  "pallet wood and profit are two words that don't go together...."
In fact, today the contrast was even worse:
                  I was cutting 22' long Oak 2X8s, which are worth about $30.00 each.
                  Each pallet stringer I cut requires about 70% as much time but is worth about $3.15!
                  I was cutting the stringers and top boards for the pallets from the jacket boards as
                  well as
from the heart of the logs where most pallet stock comes from (heart cants).

Of course, what I am doing is using what would normally just be slabbed off by many folks, to satisfy
one more customer as I am cutting the higher-profit beams and trailer decking.
This really boils down to the "bird in the hand" versus the "bird in the bush."  I have the pallet wood
customer.   I may or may not have a future FAS customer.   Needless to say, stockpiling and holding
the side wood or jacket boards is an option.  That option includes stacking,  transporting from the
current saw site, off-loading, sticker stacking,  breaking down that stack later, and sorting that
air-dry product or further drying to the kiln-dry state, etc.  In other words, my initial costs to keep
that wood for speculative value later are at least three times the cost of the time to actually saw
that wood.  (I know that you guys already been there done that, of course.)

OPTION :  Saw the jacket wood as pallet stock and never touch it again... get paid usually within a day or two.
    OR
OPTION :       Saw,          stack,   transport,    sticker-stack,     
                  my labor       labor$      labor$           labor$        >:(
                  +labor$                                                       and get no cash flow from it for about a year or two.

The only productive way I could imagine cutting just pallet wood would be to cut cants and send them
either through a high-powered gang or through a four-stage resaw with a return system.  I have seen
some temptingly good deals on some electric resaws lately and a renter just moved out of a section of
my warehouse which is 24' by 83' - hummm, just about the right amount of space - hummmmm.   ::)
Well..., :P
            a resaw has other uses too, - hmmmmm.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

StorminN

Resaws with returns systems sure are nice... I don't know how we got along without one for so long. Before this Baker, we had an upright Stenner and we had to hand-return the blocks. Our Baker chews wood all day long every day... we can load ten glued blocks (basically short cants) on it at a time.





-Norm.
Happiness... is a sharp saw.

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

StorminN,
You got me lustin' for a Baker system like that!   :-[

What shopteacher said makes me ask another question:  What should pallet grade logs cost?
As far as I can tell,  they seem to run $16 to $22 per ton in our area, but you have to haul them
at least thirty miles to get that.

I can get cheap logs for this one pallet customer. (No, I don't plan on pursuing more),
I will be paying an average of about $18 per ton.  On Pine logs that is about .10 per bd. ft.
On hardwood, of course,  it would be more around .13 per bd. ft.  


This situation has arisen because some of the tree guys had been carrying their logs to
a pallet mill.  It is 30+ miles away.  Fuel costs have made them stop transporting.
I can get the logs for a couple of dollars less per ton straight from the tree
services. I probably can get a good amount for next-to-nothing, if I set-up
at their dump site and cut there.

Phil L.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

Dave Shepard

frp, contact ADAMINMO about a Baker DVD. Baker has a bunch of resaw options. I like watching the grade resaw system, way cool! :)


Dave
Wood-Mizer LT40HDD51-WR Wireless, Kubota L48, Honda Rincon 650, TJ208 G-S, and a 60"LogRite!

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Dave,

I took a look at the videos available at the Baker site online.
Very impressive set-ups!  I especially like the one where they
have a single band unit which is feeding into a two-head unit.
The combo can produce about 60 pallet top boards per minute!
Of course, you have to have quite a supply of cut-to-length blanks
to feed those babies!

The don't have a clip online of the turn-around setup like StorminN's, however.

Phil L.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

StorminN

Phil,

I'll make you a clip tomorrow!... post it to YouTube and a link here...

Our saw is a Model BBR-0... 40hp elec. for the band and another 40hp electric for the hydraulic unit. Oh, and another 40hp for the dust collector outside... but that handles the whole wood shop, not just the resaw...

-Norm.
Happiness... is a sharp saw.

just_sawing

I can see pallet wood in my future. But before that happens there will have to be three more pieces of equipment.
Slab edger
Cut Off Saw
Resaw.
If you have and option of taking alittle heavey cut on your logs this speeds up one of the most time comsumming operations which is the first cut. The slab edger sets the width cutoff saw to pallet lehght and resaw untill the pig whisles. THe fact of profit comes from nothing but bark in the slab pile.
You can follow me at
www.http://haneyfamilysawmill.com

StorminN

Hi Phil...

As promised, this is a video of our Baker resaw, cutting 1/4" thick slices off of glued-up aspen blocks earlier today. I walked into the wood shop as the operator was just finishing up, so only the very tops of the blocks were still on the machine... that's why he's handling them at all.

The video starts at the tail end of the saw. When a block moves from the belt onto the rollers in the foreground, a proximity sensor triggers the hydraulic ram on the left and the ram pushes the block to the right, onto the three-strand chain. There are small metal "fingers" that prevent the thin cut piece on the bottom from moving to the right when the block gets pushed over, so then when the rollers start again, the cut piece exits the tail end of the machine. At the very end of the video, you can catch a glimpse of the (very dusty) 40hp electric / hydraulic unit in the corner behind all the scrap... this unit is what powers all the belts, chains, rams, etc. on the saw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpwNlLF8qfw

-Norm.
Happiness... is a sharp saw.

stonebroke

neat machine. What do you make out of that aspen?

Stonebroke

StorminN

Stonebroke,

Well, they are not for pallets! Sorry to hijack this thread, but that Baker would work for pallet wood, too.

We make snowboards... we're the largest remaining US manufacturer. Each one of those 1/4" thick pieces will become the wood core of a snowboard.

We start with pallet loads of kiln-dried 4/4 and 5/4 wood, cut the loads to length on a big band saw (a pallet load at a time) and then glue the strips into blocks, butcher-block style. Some blocks are all aspen, some have strips of birch plywood, some have palownia or balsa... we do all different types. We even do skateboards and some skis.

The glued-up blocks go on the resaw and get sliced into individual cores... once the core pieces come off the resaw, we surface sand the cores a couple at a time on a 36" Timesaver sander, then we run them through a 36" wide CNC sander that profiles the cores, so they have a certain thickness curve to them along their length. Every model snowboard is different... different flex, different "ride"... so lots of different thickness profiles. Then we cut the cores to pattern shape, (shape of the snowboard) either with a CNC router, or with a steel-rule die in a hydraulic die press. Then we drill out the insert holes with a CNC gang drill, and the core is ready for the rest of the process... the lamination and such. There are pics of some of the other machines in my gallery, under "Other saws" and "Other equipment".

-Norm.


Happiness... is a sharp saw.

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Great demo, StorminN!

Had to shed a few tears today.  :'(    :'(       :'(

Well, what would you do, if among the oak logs you are cutting
for two different customers at a remote site, you had a 14'-10"
veneer quality Willow Oak log.  Heart was dead center both ends.
Small end about 26" diameter. Perfectly circular shape.  Hardly
any taper.  Didn't see a knot in the entire log, other that the
juvenile wood near the pith itself!  Willow Oak is one of the coarser-
grained Reds, so I don't know if it could really peel well, but man,
what a log!

Now it is all 3"X8" deck material for a heavy equipment lowboy.
Oh well, at least it wasn't cut into pallet lumber.

Phil L.              P.S. to  Just_Sawing:   Didn't mean to be a bad influence on you!   ;)
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

Warren

Phil,  Food for thought.

1) I would love to get $0.40/bf for pallet lumber out of my slabs. Last time I sold to the pallet shop, $0.18/bf.  Not worth the sawing and hauling.
2) Cutting pallet lumber out of the slab as a secondary product to get to your primary product (beams and decking) may be worthwhile.  But, is your cost of production low enough to make it worth while to break down the entire log into pallet lumber ?
3) Time = Money.  Even if your cost of logs plus cost of production is less than the sale price of the pallet lumber (profitable), do you have something else you could be doing that would be more profitable per hour than saw pallet lumber ?  eg: piano tuning ?


Warren
LT40SHD42, Case 1845C,  Baker Edger ...  And still not near enough time in the day ...

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Warren,

The piano tuning is definitely more profitable.  On the other hand,
it turns me into a human pretzel after about three days of it.

The sawmilling is the perfect antidote - the extreme opposite in physical activity,
especially with a swingblade.  The mix is good for me physically and mentally.

No, I really don't think sawing entire logs into pallet stock is profitable either with
just a bandmill or a swinger.
It could only be so, if done on a big scale and done in a highly automated fashion -
in other words in a fashion beyond the level that I plan on investing in $$$ wise.
Buying tractor trailer loads of cants and using $200 K worth of machinery would
not be anything like the refreshing days of sawing which I very much enjoy!

To give you an example...
The smallest scale which would make money would be either a system like StorminN's
running all day to cut the cants made by a bandmill breakdown saw, or a system
like the combo on the Baker site.  The combo takes two men to run.  At that pace,
it would take two bandsaws or swingmills to make enough cants to equal the rate
at which the Baker combo could saw the cants out.  That is a minimum of 4 crew
directly sawing, plus at least one more moving product, maybe another moving logs.
The other option is to buy those tractor trailer loads of cants - probably the better choice.

So..., my refreshing world of being a sometimes-sawyer would be blown for sure.
Instead, it would become a managerial situation.  Don't want it.  The last two weeks
I just watch the weather closely.  If it is going to rain, I know I will tune pianos.  If the
weather is good, most of those days I will be sawing...

OR WISHIN' I WUZ SAWIN'!

Phil L.

Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

MikeH


fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Our latest venture with wood d'pallet' on the side was a real mix.  If only things
would work out like this all the time.  Thank the Lord that they sometimes do!
:)
The primary deal:  To do 500 bd. ft. of trailer decking from the log provider's logs
in exchange for the balance of the logs.  Earth moving and grading contractor
had the logs and wanted 2X8X16' decking.  He also pushed down four big pines
for the rest of a beam project that I had going.  None of the logs cost him anything
other than 30 minutes of machine time.  The Oak logs which were already there
were a perc of a job for which he was paid to haul the logs away.  Everyone seems
satisfied.

There were four simultaneous "customers" on this one sawing site:

Cutting on barter terms the 2" trailer deck for the customer with the logs;
Cutting 1-1/2" and 3" thick trailer decking for a second (paying) customer buying from me;
Cutting three 6X8X24' beams of yellow pine for a third (paying) customer;
Cutting the jacket lumber into the pallet material for the fourth (paying) customer;

I don't do much barter or share sawing but this worked well.
I just put in on paper; he said okay; cutting started two hours later.

As you can see, the pallet wood was a real "side issue," if you will pardon the pun,
but it still generated a few hundred dollars out of the overall deal.  So, for less than
$150 worth of bartered sawing time, plus my helper cost, I was able to generate around $1500
worth of additional lumber sold, plus the little extra that I will take home with me which
will be some SYP beams and a little clear oak.

P.S.  There is no telling how much wood is buried in this company's dump area.
        Maybe I should hang around a little longer and do some log mining.

Phil L.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

The saga of la pallet continues, or would that be "le pallet?"

Today we got down to one particular truly pallet grade 10ft. log, so I sawed it
into all top boards for the pallet wood customer on the swinger: 5/8" by 3-1/2".
The end of the log had been splintered by harsh handling by a track hoe.
It was one of those logs about which Randy (secondary morning assistant) asked, 
     "Whyz Phil puttin' that ole thangown heeyuh, faw?" :(
When I put it on, I said,
     "Why did I put that on here?"    >:( 

To make a short story even shorter,  in fifteen minutes a log that started out
sorrier than trash became 26 pallet top boards (10FT.+), worth $1.16 each (at $.40/bd.ft.).
I cut all but the squeal, as Just_Sawing might say.  I hoofed it as fast as I
could go, and Shawn (primary afternoon assistant) literally had to just toss each board out of the way,
and into a random pile, so as to keep up with me, but I think that was actually making? money?!

$30.16 cents in fifteen minutes out of a log that was free and should? have?
been left off the log deck.  Repeat this four times in an hour (if my heart would
stand the pace), and you have a $120.64 conversion of junk to sellable (actually sold)
product.  With a swingblade, no edger is required and no resaw is required.
Frankly, I was truly surprised (as well as a bit out of breath, of course)!
:o
                                        P.S.  The pallet wood trailer also has hundreds of linear feet of absolutely
Phil L.                                        clear pine 1-1/4" by 3-1/2" twenty-two feet long rift and edge grain. It
                                   :'(          came off the logs for the 24' beams.
                                   
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

After my previous entries - blog style I suppose - there are some side considerations
to be admitted in this story of the lone pallet log:

      Log cost :              None; log was just a cut-off from a decent lower log.  That lower
                                    log went to 16' trailer decking.
      Log handling cost:  None; part of the more useful logs handled by my barter customer
      Lumber handling:    Did not include the time for Shawn to restack jumbled boards (four to five min.?).
                                    All we do for this customer is go right from the saw onto his trailer.
      Repeatability:         Probably need to try doing several to retest the time factor, etc.
      My buyer:              His pay of .40 per bd. ft. is higher than most of the prices I have seen on FF.
                                   In other words, this blessing is out of the ordinary.
      Cutting:                 I am not cutting to length, since he makes a couple of special oversized pallets.
                                   This does not seem common in what I have seen on the FF, either.
                                   He has commented that he is paying me more, but the very high quality of
                                   the material has made it worthwhile so far.
      Equipment cost:     As mentioned,  I was just using the swing blade Peterson - VIGOROUSLY!
      Life of contract:     Who knows?   This small demand would not justify doing anything beyond what
                                   I am doing right now.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Well, I have to admit it.

I finally could not stand it any more!

We caught up with the demand on my pallet wood customer, so I began to do two things:

         1.    When I could get a clear 1X6 board - even one or two off a log,
                 I took them for my stash.  Of course, I only do this on logs where I have
                that freedom of choice.
         2.    When I was cutting deep vertical for a row of pallet boards and came across clear
                beautiful tight vertical grain pine,  I pulled those out for my stash: 5/4 by 3-1/2".
                These will be sold as "quarter sawn heart Yellow Pine" 'cause that's what they are!

Today, I cut maybe only a couple dozen boards which fit these categories, but those will bring
more cash later than quite a few pallet boards.

Packed up the saw and misc. this afternoon.

Sorting this site out tomorrow.  Got one load of pallet wood to be picked up, some trailer deck Oak
to haul out for me; some Yellow Pine 2X8s for the land-owner; some of those for me; and misc
boards as described under #1, and #2 above.

Hope to have the saw set up 40 miles away by the end of the day for the next adventure.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

As you can see, this entry is a few weeks later and A LOT of pallet wood later.
How did sawing the pallet wood look over time?  (with a swing-blade mill)

Cutting pallet wood with a swinger is about a break-even proposition, if you are using
hired help.  In fact, it is NOT worth my personal time.  If I let my new sawyer
do the sawing, he is not as fast, but we break even - him sawing with one helper.

So,  is it worth my piano tuning time ?      NOPE
Can it at least "keep your guys working?"     Yes, barely.

By the way,...
   It sure is good that this farmer customer can use saw chips, cause cuttin'
this stuff makes a boat load of 'em 
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

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