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Rough sawn lumber

Started by tpatton, October 20, 2010, 11:25:03 AM

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tpatton

Hi, I recently purchased my first Woodmizer and have begun a sawmill business. I have been sawing cants for pallets and obviously saw off a lot of rough lumber when sawing the cants. Where have people had luck selling their rough lumber? I have piles of it, would be happy to sell it at very reasonable prices, just not sure what markets might have a need for it. I'd hate to see all this good lumber go to waste! Thank you in advance for your input!

Piston

Where are you from? 
Welcome to the forum!
-Matt
"What the Lion is to the Cat the Mastiff is to the Dog, the noblest of the family; he stands alone, and all others sink before him. His courage does not exceed his temper and generosity, and in attachment he equals the kindest of his race."

tpatton

I am from Bloomfield, Indiana. Thank you for the welcome!

tazz

I have pretty good luck with craigslist and it's free.

beenthere

Welcome tpatton.

Do you have your lumber in air drying stacks? Stickered well, and such?

What species are you sawing, and sizes and lengths?
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Brucer


  • Figure out what it can be used for -- what sizes are popular, etc.
  • Find out what the product sells for in big box stores. Can you sell for less money? Can you make yours "better"?
  • Stack and sticker it, sorted by size (don't mix different sizes in one pile).
  • Cover it to keep the sun off it. Use lumber tarp, not hardware store tarp.
  • Make sure people know what you sell and where to find you.
  • Sell individual boards for a high price and give a big discount for larger amounts. Otherwise folks will think they can treat you like a lumber yard.
Wait ...

Sooner or later you'll make a sale.

I sell Douglas-Fir timbers, custom cut to the owners' specs. All the side lumber gets edged to 4", 6", or 8" widths. Everything gets trimmed to 8', 10', or 12' lengths, plus an inch. It's all stacked and stickered -- 9 different piles to cover all the combinations. Every pile is a standard number of boards wide and high. That way I can count piles rather than boards to know what I've got.

I sold only a little last year. This year I sold most of last year's stock and a good portion of this year's supply. B&B siding, fences, sheathing under decks, roof strapping and gable ends.

If you don't have a ready market for it, either get rid of it, or take the time to protect it from the elements.
Bruce    LT40HDG28 bandsaw
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers."

SwampDonkey

Ask some outfits that buy up lumber, that finish processing it (grading, kiln, cut to length, planing). They are quite particular and want no stain, a uniform cut, and probably have specs on defects.

Maritime Lumber here has several sheds of hardwood lumber stacked 20 feet high, mostly hard maple. But they bring in cherry and walnut to from the US. I asked them what in the world do they do with it all. They said it's exported out of province. We don't have any furniture factories anymore. That compressed sawdust has replaced everything, including the cupboards in most new homes. ::) We have a cupboard and cabinet shop nearby and they had to go to that sawdust because no one could afford solid wood.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

bandmiller2

Tpatton welcome,just a thought your selling pallet cants ask the buyer what dimention boards he uses, you got them anyway, save him from recutting cants that could be used for outher stuff.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

kderby

Two bits of advice that I now believe:

1: A hogger (grinder) is a sawmills best friend. 
2: Your first loss is your best loss.

In less cryptic terms, junk is junk.  Spending time handling junk is a fools errand.  Pile it, grind it, give it away and get it gone! 

Yeah, Yeah, I'll get someone who says "Sell every part of the output from debarker (mulch) to sawdust (oil absorber?)."  That is legit and important, if it is possible.  At my scale that is not realistic....can't afford the grinder.  I sell some waste material as firewood and burn the rest. 

I also adhere to the view that you will lose money on 75% of what you cut.  You had better make up for that loss on the 25% that is profitable.

Kderby

woodmills1

get orders

high schools, steel companies, trucking companies, paving companis, fence companies

cut to orders

get paid

put the leftovers that did meet the specs of the orders ina stack and watch them get grey

do not cut just to cut except at the beginning for practice
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

Corey B


Corey B


DPatton

  tpatton welcome to the forum.  :) I'm not sure why but your forum name sure sounds familiar. 8) 8) 8) good luck with finding a market for your side lumber.
TimberKing 1600, 30' gooseneck trailer, Chevy HD2500, Echo Chainsaw, 60" Logrite.

Work isn't so bad when you enjoy what your doing.
D & S Sawmill Services

longtime lurker

It took me 5 years of banging my head against the wall to figure out what I'm about to tell you. Once I did the number son this place changed for the better dramatically.

Forget the pallet cants. Forget the quartersawn oak, the walnut mantles... forget all the high grade/ high value stuff. Concentrate on finding markets for the trash. If you can do that it pushes your cost of production of the good stuff down. And that good stuff - it will pretty much sell itself most the time anyway, you dont need to look to hard to find a buyer for good boards.

But making money off your trash... now thats the hard part. If you can do it either your better value products become highly profitable, or your better quality products stay the same and the trash is near pure profit - depends which way you look at it.
Stakes, survey pegs, pipeline wedges, dunnage, props for fruit trees... all that kinda stuff. Sometimes you might have to spit a better log out as something less then pallet or whatever but.... those orders tend to be (a) repeat and (b) big.

Just go at it steady, look at what sizes your trash can cut thats marketable, then find a market. Start small, be a reliable supplier same as the good stuff: a couple years ago we took a stake order off a guy for tree planting. In the last 6 months we've supplied 30k stakes into that county for three farms. Havent had a piece of side lumber over 36"all year go to waste. Got a pipeline wedge order once.... now any short 4x2's here just get banged out as wedges so we can send a thousand at a time without turning a saw on.

We're just a little mill... by rights we shouldnt be anywhere near this high volume/low value stuff... but we turned out a wage in downgrade in the last 6 months and for the most part we never cut a good log to do it.  We turned away as much again because we couldnt handle our regular stuff + any more trash.

And the best part is... no-one else wants to do it. Just look back up this page.
The quickest way to make a million dollars with a sawmill is to start with two million.

customsawyer

Well said LL. I always say if I was butchering hogs I would be trying to figure out how to sell the squeal.
Two LT70s, Nyle L200 kiln, 4 head Pinheiro planer, 30" double surface Cantek planer, Lucas dedicated slabber, Slabmizer, and enough rolling stock and chainsaws to keep it all running.
www.thecustomsawyer.com

PA_Walnut

Interesting words of advice. We try to do the same, but often throw it on the burn pile, dismissing it as "not worth the work.".

Will have to relook at this.
I own my own small piece of the world on an 8 acre plot on the side of a mountain with walnut, hickory, ash and spruce.
LT40HD Wide 35HP Diesel
Peterson Dedicated Wide Slabber
Kubota M62 Tractor/Backhoe
WoodMizer KD250 Kiln
Northland 800 Kiln

PAmizerman

Longtime lurker did you have things cut and advertise or did the people come to you first? Did you call certain places looking for work?
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longtime lurker

I dont advertise downgrade. I just kind of fell into it... which is to say I pulled up to get fuel on a roadtrip and there was a truck loaded down with stakes and i bothered to see what the story was. 300 mile south of here is australias largest tomato growing area... 2 x 1½ x 72" unpointed... truckload after truckload during planting season. Money was pretty poor but i started stockpiling them off my edgings because we get a lot of butt flare on our logs. Rang a guy who knew a guy and when i had a truckload i wandered on down and came home 5k richer. The money on them is actually below the cost of production but I was going to burn that stuff anyway so... 5k is 5k and you dont burn that much diesel on a 600 mile round trip.

Once you know something is there you start looking for it. Avocado's are being planted north of here a lot... they use an inch by inch by 5 foot stake... same again, edgings, shorts, whatever... i slab off in inch thickness once they start hitting 5'long. Cutting flooring stock we only really make money on 4"and over so where we used to take low value skinny boards now it all goes at 1 x 1. planting season is over now so we're just stockpiling for next year but we'll shift them in 8 months. Then we'll start sawing hard for the things to keep up probably... same again its barely at cost of production but it chews up every non target size right quick, where I used to have tons of short boards piled up now I got pallets of stakes. We sold 30k of those mongrel things between June and Christmas last year, and probably half of it was stuff that you'd slab off otherwise.

In about 3 years every one of those avocado trees that took a stake this year will need about 7 props (3 x 1½ x 7-10')to hold the branches up during fruiting season. You do the maths at cost + 10%.
I had to turn down a $40k prop order last month - I'd been that busy sawing for stakes the log yard was bare and at this time of year that situation had to be rectified before i cut another thing. (rain shuts logging down for about 4 months straight after christmas).

The pipeline wedges... I was walking along a street one day where they were replacing a sewer and noticed them using timber wedges to square the pipes up on the joins. Same again - I bothered to ask and got myself another little shorts/ offcuts job there.

Thing is to think laterally. You get slabs that are say 3 -6' long all the time you go looking for an application for what you can cost effectively pull out of them. Find a buyer, send a few, get some feedback, send a few more. People know people - I know a whole lot of timber industry related people as do you. I ask one guy down in a trench about his 8" long timber wedges, went home and banged out a hundred to get the process right and get a costing on them and took them back and gave them to him... and 5 years later every single civil contractor who lays pipe in 300 mile is in my phone. They ring me because they know that I've got timber wedges sitting here ready to leave on the next truck. Pipeline contractors tend to know pipeline contractors.

Biggest downside to all this has been a sawdust problem... without all the edgings and offcuts in there the pile smoulders rather then burns. If thats a problem I'll take it.

You want a mind boggling number? Think about how many thousands of miles of 2 x 2 was used to hold up pictures of Hillary and Donald in 2016. Downgrade is all about the volume. ;D


The quickest way to make a million dollars with a sawmill is to start with two million.

PA_Walnut

Brilliant words of advice! I feel like I'm staring into the Abyss and it's staring back! :o

We attempt to reclaim as much scrap and edgings as possible, but it's labor intensive and piddly. Need to look at some new avenues. I have some in mind already!
I own my own small piece of the world on an 8 acre plot on the side of a mountain with walnut, hickory, ash and spruce.
LT40HD Wide 35HP Diesel
Peterson Dedicated Wide Slabber
Kubota M62 Tractor/Backhoe
WoodMizer KD250 Kiln
Northland 800 Kiln

longtime lurker

Look, when you do this stuff - when you start playing downgrade - you got to really think it through.
Now I'm a good sawyer: I'm good, but I'm not a great one and I've known a few of them over the years. I'm honest enough with myself to know the difference. What I am is a very good mill manager.

Many small guys dont fully realise the difference there because we do it all ourselves, but there is a big difference between running a saw cutting wood and running a sawmill as a business, right?

Dont cut yourself short on downgrade pricing. You got to get away from the "its only junk" mindset and realise that to the end user its not junk... its a product that they need and have to pay for and cannot run their business without. And you have to price it so that it's profitable for you also. Maybe not highly profitable.... maybe even just breakeven... but if necessary you should be able to run on the stuff without going backwards.

My attitude to all this stuff is that we have two classes of the stuff. Im cutting stakes right now as we go from my rejects - we get a couple hundred a week or so: just a nice bonus from material that otherwise has no value to me. Later in the year they'll shift, and they'll be pretty much money for nothing. But the price is such that if we get that surge in demand for the things we did last year I can if necessary take whole logs and turn them into stakes at breakeven money - I wont make much profit on the latter but there is a little bit there.

What I havent done is price them as junk. If I did that, I'd still get a bonus on the byproduct part of it but I would not be able to feed logs in to make the things for two days at the end of the week each week for 3 months. Someone up the page said that they lose money on 75% of what they saw, and make a good profit on the rest. If that works for you it works for you but personally I'd not want to play that game. I lose money on sawdust, and while I'll sell it at a loss I'll also burn it rather then give it away. If you dont value your time and your equipment then dont expect anyone else to.

You need to know your true cost of production. And thats annual production divided by (log costs + equipment costs + maintenance costs + property costs + wages cost including your own + any opther expense you can think of). When you're a little guy you tend to swallow a lot of those, and I do it to. (Its Sunday, and in a bit I'm going to go sweep floors and sharpen saws and do a whole whack of other things ready for monday and I'm not on the clock here for that) Theres a couple real important numbers in the sawmilling business and that one there - "how much does it cost me on average to make wood?" - in dollars per BF/M3 is one of the most important because so long as you stay above that you dont go broke. Maybe. Its sawmilling. :D
The quickest way to make a million dollars with a sawmill is to start with two million.

PA_Walnut

I think that the problem many have is correlating the real expenses (and the not so obvious ones) to a bottom line. This is also coupled with the "future sales" mentality of, "Well, I'm sawing it now and some day down the road someone will want it." Thus, it's kinda banking an asset or long-term investment, but it doesn't much help operational expenses now. Have known many'o sawyers with big piles of boards and no cash.  :-\

Another observation is, I know several lumber operations in the area that I've visited who just seem like they don't really want to sell material to you. It's either priced so far out that it's ridiculous, or "this isn't for sale." or "that is promised to someone..." It seems more hobby-driven than for-profit. Buying from a hobbyist or hoarder seldom rewards.

When I am buying logs, I've had a past notion of trying to really pay-up so that I get repeat business. Also, trying to model my pay prices based on some else's list. Then I came to realize that neither make much sense. THere's so many other considerations that must be made: market, costs, operational costs, etc. etc. Trying not to be emotionally invested in it also helps, which is obviously difficult, since mostly all sawyers get a high in opening up that "special" log.

Your notion that there's often a vast difference between sawyer and business manager is also a wise observation...as I view my own very small operation and go over my notes and plans for growth, it gives me opportunity to see where I best fit. My wife has a degree in logistics/ops and would be MUCH better overseeing a mill--boards would flow with ease--stacks moved twice instead of six times, etc. However, we'd have no logs to saw and no customers. Acquisition and marketing is my forte. So, as a team, we generally do well....so long as we're not screaming at each other at the mill. Some days it's unstoppable force meets immovable object.  (which I have strictly forbidden now..."this is a happy place and we're not curing cancer. Can't we all just git along?")  :D :D

To the original poster: sorry for hijacking your thread. This is a REALLY good informational that I wish I had read long ago. In sawing, lumber, woodworking, etc. I've seen a LOT of people mix hobby with business. Seldom do the twain meet. Neither are wrong, just vastly different.

YellowHammer, I'd really appreciate hearing your view on Lurker's success in lower-grade materials vs. your own. Your business model is close to what we're attempting to emulate here, with an emphasis (if not exclusive) on catering to the hobby woodworker seeking best-in-class material. Since I assume you invest most of your week preparing for SAT retail, I wonder where/how lower grade materials work into your plan. Any insights you could share?
I own my own small piece of the world on an 8 acre plot on the side of a mountain with walnut, hickory, ash and spruce.
LT40HD Wide 35HP Diesel
Peterson Dedicated Wide Slabber
Kubota M62 Tractor/Backhoe
WoodMizer KD250 Kiln
Northland 800 Kiln

YellowHammer

This is an interesting topic, because its one I see all sides of very often, because since I sell way more than I can saw and dry, I am constantly investigating alternative product streams.  1). We saw, dry and dress our own logs into final lumber, 2) we saw dry and dress logs we've bought, 3) we buy green lumber, dry and dress it, and 4) we buy high grade dried lumber, make it better and sell it.  Although our bushiness model is high grade high quality, diversification is the key to survival, and we also sell low grade even though we try to produce as little of it as possible.  I set my prices at a significant multiplier on total net profit ratio on every transaction, including labor, materials, insurance, wages and general headache. 

So the rule of Buy Low Sell High apples to every transaction we take.  One businesses' waste is another businesses profit, it depends on the configuration of the business, the labor required, and also the direction and capabilities of the business operators.

I buy logs by Doyle Scale, I keep track of yield when I mill them, and that is what I use in my net profit calculations.  Anything after that I make on the logs byproducts is gravy.   At that point I just don't want to cost me.  Classic case is Walnut and Cherry Slabs and Lumber.  Purchase a walnut log for $300 make 4 slabs from it, sell them for $1200, turn the remainder of the logs into 4/4 lumber.  Sometimes I will buy loads of logs with intention of having slabs cut from the logs cover pay the profit margin, so the lumber I also produce from them is a bonus.  We sell lots of slabs, more than we can produce, maybe 20 yesterday, all species.  Some cost more than others, so I charge different prices based on value and expense to make them.  Point it, since I'm labor limited do I spend my time milling walnut into $8 per bdft boards or $15 per bdft slabs?  Once I hit my profit point, is the remainder waste or lost profit?  Its all about bottom line.     

We strive to be zero waste company.  I want every piece of the log or lumber to hit our landing to have value, either to me or to a customer.

A couple examples, (the list goes on and on)
Our low grade kiln dried boards go into a "Project Rack" where everything is priced at $1 per bdft.  These are the inevitable No1 and 2 common, shorts, warped, and nasty boards that are always a byproduct of high grading hardwood operations.  We sell every board that hits the "Project" rack.  As a matter of fact, I have customers ask for it and I'm always running lower as our operations gets more streamlined, so I go out to the local mega mills and actually buy their waste "frame stock" and "Thick and Thin" boards, a couple thousand bdft at a time and come home, cut the steel bands, drop it in the rack and sell it, sometimes, by the end of the day.  I typically pay 30 to 50 cents per bdft, I sell if for Project wood at $1.  These big mills won't sell to average Joe customers, so my customers don't have access to kiln dried, low grade.  This includes oak, poplar, cherry, maple, etc.  I am able to provide it at a very reasonable retail price.  So we turn our waste, and other mills waste, into product.

Any ultra low grade boards that don't sell get used for our own pallets.  Pallet stock is expensive, so we make our own.  We use a lot of pallets.

Green slabs and other sawmill waste either goes to charity, sold as firewood, or into the burn pit.  Tax Deductions are real money.  Many organizations will ask for free wood, which can be written off as a donation.  A couple years ago, Remington Arms opened a new manufacturing plant, and the Huntsville Botannical Garden needed wood slabs to build old style pioneer forts.  Guess which business donated maybe a dozen truck loads of slabs to them?  Good Old Hobby Hardwood.  Got my company some publicity and every parent that has their kids play in the fort knows where the wood comes from  All other green wood goes into piles that are sold as firewood, or as a company perk.  Come to Hobby Hardwood, buy some high grade lumber, and get some free firewood slabs as a bonus.

Everything that we cant get rid of gets burned and becomes a valuable farm resource.  Although when green, wood is very acidic however when it is burned, it turns basic and concentrates it minerals.  Have you ever built a campfire and come back the next season and seen a bright green spot in the grass?  So we burn our slabs we don't donate or sell, and I take the ashes and spread them on my fields as a valuable soil enrichment product that saves me thousands of dollars per year not having to lime my fields.

Other "waste" markets are seasonal.  Holidays and weddings are "log end Cookie" consumers.  We started selling chainsaw green cut cookies, 2 to 4 inches thick, by the pallet load for $5 each.  So when we buck logs to length, instead of making one buck cut, I make more cuts, slicing cookies out of what would normally be waste wood.  I used to cut cookies ion the mill, took too long, not enough margin.  Now I chainsaw them, better payoff and still have happy customers.

Low grade mills make a lot of money.  High grade mills make a lot of money.  One persons trash is another's persons gold.  Creative thinking is the key.  There is no right or wrong, only what works in the particular market. 
 




 
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

Resonator

Great topic! Lots of good info here for the new guy starting out. To be successful you have to be a good sawyer AND a good businessman. Hobby and business are two different things. But if you can do something you love, and get paid for it, it doesn't seem like work. ;) A friend stopped in and looked at the stacks of boards I had cut and asked "You think you got enough lumber?!" I said "I'm working at turning this into money..."  :)
Under bark there's boards and beams, somewhere in between.
Cuttin' while its green, through a steady sawdust stream.
I'm chasing the sawdust dream.

Proud owner of a Wood-Mizer 2017 LT28G19

Peter Drouin

That's it, Make money with every part of the log.
A&P saw Mill LLC.
45' of Wood Mizer, cutting since 1987.
License NH softwood grader.

Brucer

Well, it's a pretty old thread and the original poster hasn't been on in the past 7 years ... but it's still a worthwhile topic.

Quote from: longtime lurker on January 27, 2018, 05:56:14 PM
... Dont cut yourself short on downgrade pricing. You got to get away from the "its only junk" mindset and realise that to the end user its not junk... its a product that they need and have to pay for and cannot run their business without.  ...

Several years ago I had a pretty effective system of edging my side lumber (to go into stock for future sales). Any time there was a defect in an edged board, my helper would either send it back to be re-edged, or mark it to be trimmed to the next shorter length. Anything that didn't meet my minimum standard size was waste and went into the firewood slab bundles.

One fall we were short on stickers so I had her toss the "waste" boards to one side, to be edged as time permitted. Then a long-time customer came along looking for some "cheap" wood to line a barn that his wife kept her goats in. I looked at my pile of "waste" -- too much wane, big knotholes, cut too thin, chain saw cross cuts -- and said I'd let him have it (he was a good customer). He insisted on paying me. So I had him pile it on his truck, guessed the average length, measured the width of the pile and the number of full layers, and calculated the total area in BF. I gave away the partial layer on top, and deducted 25% from the BF calculation, and then suggested a price based on half my $/BF for good lumber. He said, "Is that all ??". That's when I realized I had a new product.

After that I had my helper stack and sticker all the 1x4x8' "waste" boards in a special pile right by the mill. When someone came looking for "cheap" wood, I'd show them the pile and tell the it was "off spec" and was half the regular price. The pile never grew beyond 30 or 40 boards. Best of all, people would tell me not to bother making change  ;D.

I was making 93% more for the "waste" than if I'd sold it as firewood. The time spent to stack and sticker it wasn't any more than the time to shift it to the slab pile.

But the key thing was to turn it into a "product". It wasn't "waste" or "junk", it was "off-spec". And the price wasn't "x $/BF", it was "50% off the regular price". I always made a sure to point out the sort of defects to expect, and I always let the customer pick through it as long as they left the pile neat.
Bruce    LT40HDG28 bandsaw
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers."

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