WHAT SIZE DO YOU SELL??

[tree dude]

Been a while since i talked to you guys havent really been milling that much,but here is my question,what size of lumber do you sell the most of ???
smiley_beatnik

[Magicman]

This is really not an answer to your question because I'm not in the lumber selling business.  That being said, I do occasionally  obtain logs, saw, and sell them.  I generally do not have a buyer when I saw, but the logs need sawing.

I saw 1/ 5/8" X a full 12" and sticker stack them.  They can then be brought back to the mill and make three 2X4's, or two 2X6's, or one 2X4 & one 2X8 with no material loss.   The most popular lengths are 12' and 16'.

[Cedarman]

The most popular for ERC is 1x6x8 . Less than 10% of what we saw.  We wait until the phone rings because, you would not believe all the different sizes and widths people want.   Probably a 100 different sizes and lengths.  We make a lot of 3 sided cants of 4", 5", 6", 7" and 8" wide.  We can later resaw these to desired thickness.  Cedar won't crack(other than a little surface checking )or warp, so we can get by doing it.

[Kansas]

Trailer decking the most popular is 1 1/2 inches. That being said, we cut whatever the customer wants, from 1 inch up to 3 inches thick. Length can be about anything. Kiln dried lumber, the most popular size is 1 inch, although we keep some thicker stock available. Pallet lumber is just about everything, we specialize in oddball stuff. Some skids are a solid 1 1/2 inch top. We turn all the slash into 1/2 inch thick for another pallet customer. The only thing we use the computer on the woodmizer for is to show where the head position is at. We simply have way too many different sizes thats likely to come out of a log.

[Bibbyman]

I'm with Cedarman.  No two custom orders the same although if we get a chance to help the customer decide, we'll guide him to some of our standard sizes.

We have a steady market for 1"x6" and 2"x6" by 8'-14' lengths in even increments.  We saw the thickness 1" for 1" and 1-5/8" for 2" and full 6" wide.  We hardly ever get an order for 2x4s.

We have a steady market for 6x8s and 3x4s for local industries.  We sawed flooring lumber this morning and made 6x8s out of the heart in the expectation of getting an order for 6x8s or 3x4s.  If the 3x4 order comes first, we'll put the 6x8s back on the mill and split them both ways.  We saw the 6x8s 1/8" oversize in order to make room for the split kerf.

[woodmills1]

1x6x8 and 16  oak horse fence is my bread and butter

4x4x8 pine dunnage is my strawberry jam

2x oak trailer deck is the gravy.....no grits no poutine

[WDH]

Is the 2x oak for trailers a full 2" or is it 1.5" like with pine construction 2x's?

For you hardwood guys do you saw hardwood 1" even for rough4/4 or do you saw it 1 & 1/8" thick?

[ARKANSAWYER]

ERC is 1x6x8'
SYP is 1x8x8' and12'
oaks is 1 5/8x6,8,10x16' for trailer decks and barns if you do not count the 4/4 we saw just to be sawing.
Walnut  8/4
cherry 4/4
sycamore 6/4
  Last year was a very slow year and we only sawed about 500mbdft of lumber and most of it was SYP and we did produce many different sizes from 4' to 32' in length.  Working on an order of 6x16x21' timbers right now.  Glad they only need 28 of them and now they want 7 6x16x30's to go with them.

[Norm]

On trailers I saw at 1 1/2"  and for all of my hardwoods it's 1 1/8th" off the mill.

[woodmills1]

most decking I cut on the 2" marks for 1 7/8 thickness.  the horse fence is 1 1/16

[WDH]

With a good cutting accurate sawmill, 1 & 1/8" thickness for hardwood for 4/4 seems like a big waste.  That standard was likely set because of variability in thickness or poor quality control. 

[ARKANSAWYER]

  It was set some because older circle mills cut a bit rougher then the new ones and bandmills.  It also allows you some room to plane out cut and defects from handling.  Since most of the time the target is to get a good clean 3/4 thick board in hardwoods you need some room for the extra shrinkage and to remove cupping.  If you saw at 1 inch with a good bandmill in hardwoods 95% of time you will clean up the lumber with the planer on lumber less then 10 inches wide just fine.  If you saw at 1 inch then after 9 cuts on a side you will gain a board.  Unless the log is over 18 inches or you are sawing through and  through you will not gain any more lumber. If you saw at 1 1/16 you only need to make 18 more cuts on a face to gain a board.  So is the little less planing worth the possible loss of a board or two? 
  There are times when we are sawing barn siding we do saw at 1 inch thick.  But most of the time it does not gain us much more lumber it just makes putting the boards on the barn easier.
  If you are sawing lumber and do not know the enduser at the time then hit for the standard.  That way should you have to dump it on the already depressed wholesale market they will not reject your lumber for being too thin.