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How did you get started selling lumber?

Started by Glenn1, August 27, 2014, 06:58:47 PM

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Glenn1



For someone who is just now learning about turning green lumber into furniture grade lumber, I wonder how much of a vertical operation you have, and I hope I am not asking for any trade secrets. 

Does anyone here not have a sawmill but purchases the green lumber already cut and then dries it in their kiln?  I realize that the most profitability comes from owning a mill, but looking to get my feet wet.

Do you sell your lumber wholesale to a hardwood store or have you opened your own "retail location"? 

For wholesale, was it difficult to find a hardwood store that would purchase from you or do they prefer to go to the large corporations?

If you are selling directly to the public, did it take a long time to build up a client base, or were customers happy to come to you instead of the hardwood store in your region?
I am guessing that your quality is better and has been treated with TLC.

Thank  you,
Glenn
Vacutherm IDry, Nyle 53 Kiln, New Holland Skid Steer, Kaufman Gooseneck Trailer, Whitney 32A Planer

woodman58

I have been selling lumber that I purchase from a sawyer. Then I dry it in my kiln, ans sell the rough cut lumber on craigslist. I have been doing this for about 5 years. I mainly sell walnut and cherry. But I have recently started selling white and red oak. I sell about 1000 bf a month. It makes for a nice supplement to my regular job. I am a subcontractor and I don't work all of the time. I have built up a good clientele over the years. This year I have had 1 person buy all that I dry. Good luck.
 
i LOVE THE SMELL OF SAW DUST IN THE MORNING.
Timberking 2200

WDH

Being able to cut the lumber with your own sawmill really adds value that you can put in your own pocket rather than buying the lumber from someone else.  That adds to the margin that you can achieve by selling kiln dried lumber.  In my small operation, I make more margin from sawing the logs into boards than I do by kiln drying and planing. 

I started out selling on Craigslist, and I still do.  The website that Jeff built for me really adds a lot of value, and I get lots of repeat customers. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

red oaks lumber

being able to saw logs gives so much versatility.i started in 1998 sawing, drying ,planing. early on i sold only finished products,later on people knew they could also buy r.sawn.
my opinion about selling to cabinet shops or other manufactuing, your lumber has to be comparable in price with even the large distr. center or you'll struggle selling much.
the experts think i do things wrong
over 18 million b.f. processed and 7341 happy customers i disagree

leroy in kansas

I buy sell and broker wood. Have been doing for past 12 years. When ever possible or feasible I buy truck load at current mill price. Often I get orders for wood that I don't have on hand so I find a source generally here on the FF and buy green or air dried.

I have a sawmill, However we don't have logs to make good grade lumber in this area.

If this is where your interest is go for it. Ya won't get rich but you can make a buck.

drobertson

I've sold green, and air dried oak, hickory, cedar, walnut and cherry. most of the oak goes to a flooring mill that dries the wood, then processes it.  It sells for market value at the time.  The other wood types go to wood workers who do with it as they see fit. These prices too sell for the market value.  Sawing for furniture grade lumber has a few twists, such as upholstery type items, some lower grade lumber is acceptable, but high end finish stock that is visible, these are a pick and choose kinda thing. some folks like tight little knots others need clean FAS material. So this will take time to figure out, not to mention Logs that produce this type of product.   My motto has been a bird in hand is better than two in a bush, so, find your operating profit margin and work it from there.   It will take time, and it seems to be close to a feast and famine situation, at least for me.   
only have a few chain saws I'm not suppose to use, but will at times, one dog Dolly, pretty good dog, just not sure what for yet,  working on getting the gardening back in order, and kinda thinking on maybe a small bbq bizz,  thinking about it,

oakiemac

I saw my own logs and buy green lumber. If you are sawing your own lumber then you need a market for all the grades. Sometimes I find it much easier and more profitable to buy green lumber then dry it. You get exactly what you order ie no low grade, rot, metal. Buying logs can sometimes be a gamble but it can pay off as well.
Mobile Demension sawmill, Bobcat 873 loader, 3 dry kilns and a long "to do" list.

taylorsmissbeehaven

I am not much help here as I am about as green as most of the lumber I cut! However I have cut for several guys who are building furniture. One was a one time deal that got my name from his tree service(friends of mine). I was able to cut for him and then have another FF member dry it for him. I am now cutting for another furniture maker who I have helped buy logs. This has been an "iffy" process. My part is just to cut so I am removed from the buying part of the deal. I have helped as much as I felt comfortable with and then some but ultimately I stayed out of that end of it. Buying logs seems to be a tough business. Some folks think they are gold while others are more reasonable. Do your homework and use the tools available on this site(thanks FF) and hold on for the learning curve. Best of luck,Brian
Opportunity is missed by most because it shows up wearing bib overalls and looks like work.

5quarter

Glenn...Interesting question you have. Most people get a sawmill with little or no thought as to what to do with the lumber beyond what they themselves might use. Sawing logs is a lot of fun. making lumber (stacking, air drying, kiln drying, planing, etc...) not nearly as much fun. actually selling the finished lumber almost resembles work and is no fun at all. I would think that the right person, if he had a few good mills nearby, could do very well buying green lumber, processing it and selling it into various markets. Instead of dropping $$ into sawmills, edgers and log handling equipment, you would be investing in secondary processing equipment like Kilns, planers, moulders etc... Depending on your business skills, it could be very profitable.
   My business model is a little different. I try to capitalize on the total value of the logs I get in. That is, every log has a base value, and with every step in the processing that value increases. since much of my inventory is used in my cabinet shop, I am often able to capture the full value of the log in the form of finished product. I do sell some lumber, but it is incidental to my primary work.
   There are literally hundreds of business models out there, all with their own drawbacks and advantages. with the right approach and good salesmanship, you could certainly make a go of it. one other thing. read through the archives here. There are hundreds of business related threads that provide valuable insight into how to find and/or develop markets for your lumber.
   Best of luck. 
What is this leisure time of which you speak?
Blue Harbor Refinishing

Ianab

QuoteI would think that the right person, if he had a few good mills nearby, could do very well buying green lumber, processing it and selling it into various markets. Instead of dropping $$ into sawmills, edgers and log handling equipment, you would be investing in secondary processing equipment like Kilns, planers, moulders etc... Depending on your business skills, it could be very profitable.

One of our computer business clients does exactly that, on quite a large scale. They have kilns, a treatment plant, an optimizer / finger jointing setup, and a paint shop to pre-prime the various mouldings and weatherboards they produce.

They don't operate a sawmill, and just buy in product from local mills of the grades they need, and they don't sell retail, wholesale only.

http://www.clelandstimber.co.nz/processing
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

WDH

The problem with buying green lumber and processing it for sale is that unless you are selling into a local market to woodworkers, furniture makers, or other end users, you have to compete with the big guys that are doing the very same thing that you want to do.  However, these guys, like Ian describes in his post, go through a lot of volume and are very efficient.  They can eat your lunch. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

dboyt

The sawmill makes good money for me, but, of course, there is the time & expense in milling, so it isn't all profit.  The further you can take the manufacturing process, the better.  Kiln drying roughly doubles the value of the lumber.  Surfacing and tongue & groove operations can double it again.  If you develop a good relation with sawyers, you can get a reliable source of quality lumber.  Unless you have a customer ahead of time, stick with standard sizes.

I got my start before CraigsList by putting up posters in local hardware stores, lumber yards, and farm stores.  Most of my customers are custom woodworkers with specific needs for species & dimensions.  My Norwood sawmill is particularly well designed to cut some of the oddball pieces that I deal with.  A kiln is on my short list.  I have also had good experiences working through a broker (Leroy in Kansas).  The trick to competing with the big boys is to pick up the jobs they don't want, then charge enough to make a living.
Norwood MX34 Pro portable sawmill, 8N Ford, Lewis Winch

YellowHammer

This is a very interesting topic to me and I enjoy reading the wide variety of responses because it highlights the the depth and complexity of a seemingly simple question "How did you get started?" which naturally evolves into "How have you adapted to be successful?"

I, like many others, have a mill, kilns, customers, and all the other trappings of an active business such as equipment, insurance, supply, sale and distribution issues, etc.  Each step in the process has been optimized to provide a reasonable profit in my particular business or I wouldn't be doing it.  I have tried to eliminate as many expenses as possible, and have found a system that works for me. 

Logging, milling, chipping, kiln drying, pallet manufacture, wood production, furniture, cabinetry, and it's related forest product industries are very active in this area and lots of people and big companies are doing it.  However, there are very few business that are alike, everybody has found their own niche, big or small and were driven to that point by many factors in the history and evolution of their business over time.  Seems like everybody has a different angle and they either make money, grow, adapt or fail.  What is even more fascinating is that of the many folks on this Forum who sell lumber for hobby and business, very few have the exact same business model, yet many are very successful.

Glenn1,
So in answer to your question "How did you get started?" I believe my story is like many others - I cut a couple trees down, took them to a guy with a sawmill, paid him some money, left with some lumber and found I had a passion for this kind of thing. Later, I jumped in with both feet while keeping both eyes open, made some money, made some mistakes, learned a lot, and had a great time doing it. 

I guess my point is that your journey will be unique based on your own particular skill set, motivation, knowledge and regional supply and demand.  "Starting" to sell lumber products is easy, "evolving" to find your niche is the key and takes some time, and "sustaining" your growing business can be very rewarding and profitable and will probably take you on a different path than you anticipated when you "started."
YH

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

James MacDonald

YellowHammer,
What a great post. Thank You. Enjoyed reading it.
Stressing being flexible is key!  One has to adapt to do, not what they Love but what love that returns the best.

I am just a beginner and my only Best Customer at the moment. Busy building a 28x 40 mill shed and 10x 30 overhang for drying. Have not begun marketing yet as I have too many irons in the fire and a Full Time job.

In construction I had a site concrete subcontactor show up to do some curbs and gutters. On the ladder rack where 3-4 squared up VPine logs, 6" wide and nicely wacked 3/8" thick.  They made great forms, bent nicely to radius and were used 1-3 pours and tossed out as they dried and aged. 
I thought "I can do this" and have endless pulp pine logs available. 

I made a remark to my sidewalk concrete contractor about how "cool" his competitions form work was, as he was using 1x's that where planed and store bought. 
His reply was "I love that material and want to call the company and find out where they buy it".

I am bringing him a load Tuesday for FREE for him to try out and me to analyse what it costs to produce. 

Thanks for your post

Jimmy Mac
You should see what I Saw

Timberking 2000, 1964 Hyster FL, Kabota 43DT w/grapple, Case 580C hoe and never enough Tools

YellowHammer


Quote from: James MacDonald on August 28, 2014, 06:08:14 PM
I am bringing him a load Tuesday for FREE for him to try out and me to analyse what it costs to produce. 

James,
I hope it goes well.  Best of luck to you.
YH
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

Alligator

This may or may not add to your understanding. We had a production sawmill. We sawed between between 50K and 150k of hardwood a year. It was mostly Poplar, Sweet Gum, and Black Gum. When we had dried, we hired a grader to come in and grade it. Then we sold it thru different brokers dressed to customer specs. Some wanted it 3/4, some 7/8,  some bought it rough and ran it thru their planer.

There had a veneer mill about 15 miles away that would buy all the tupelo gum logs we could get. They made doors. Tupelo gum peels a really white blemish free veneer for facing the doors. If you have not seen a tupelo gum beside a black gum they are very hard to tell apart.

We had one of our regular loggers get in a tract of timber Choctawhatchee River that had 30k of ash that we sawed and couldn't find a market for it n 1981. My Uncle was remodeling his house, and we picked thru and got some of the best 10" , 12" clear lumber and had kitchen cabinets made from it. We had to almost give it away.

Conclusion the hardwood market is much more fickle than the already fickle dimension market

My father's sawmill wisdom "Every 5 to 10 years the sawmill industry has a weening. The market gets weak and the poor business managers get weened off." 
Esterer Sash Gang is a  Money Machine

backwoods sawyer

Quote from: Alligator on August 30, 2014, 01:42:04 AM
My father's sawmill wisdom "Every 5 to 10 years the sawmill industry has a weening. The market gets weak and the poor business managers get weened off."

Seems to be a lot of truth to that. 1951 was a good year around this area as there are several production sawmills still in buisness that were established all in the same year.
The proffit and loss for the production mill I worked for looked like a roller coaster on a five to ten year ride between highs and lows over the decades. As super of the sawmill/planer during one of the dips following the owl shutting down the log supply and the enviros spiking the sales that did go thru I spent considerble time in meetings with upper management discusing some deep dips and rises of markets changes over the years, what changes were made in prior dips and what product changes were needed at that point in time. A spring cedar run pulled the plant out of the red that go around, follwed by a change to producing spruce 4x4 to be dipped in plasic for playgrounds, then we picked up the a big market for studs in the Colorado/Arizzona housing markets and road that wave till the bubble burst and the union tried to get a foot in the door. Keeping that door closed showed up on the P/L chart and the roller coaster continues today.
Thru all the years maintenace was always the last devision to take a cut and the shallowest cuts ;)




Backwoods Custom Milling Inc.
100% portable. . Oregons largest portable sawmill service, serving all of Oregon, from our Backwoods to yours..sawing since 1991

scleigh

I got into selling lumber after building a pond. I had around 50 logs from the trees that I took down to build the pond. A family member brought a woodmizer down for the Thanksgiving holiday and we milled the logs, which I used to build my pole barn.

 
After sawing the lumber for the building, I was hooked. I bought a mill last winter and have really enjoyed it. The mill has paid for itself; I have sold or used everything that I have sawn.
The wood does become more valuable the more you do with it. I can saw a cedar and do okay selling the lumber, but I do better when I make benches out of the slabs I don't sale.


 
Like everyone else has said, You end up in a much different place than where you started, but I have enjoyed it. I don't have time to mill full time but hope sale lumber, custom saw, sale benches and firewood once my corporate days are over.

WDH

Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

thecfarm

Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

petefrom bearswamp

I started milling toward the twilight of my career as a consulting forester in 2000.
initially I just sawed diseased and deformed hardwoods from my woodlot, Maple, Cherry & Ash.
I then started buying logs in, White pine and Hemlock.
My operation is vertical after the log buying with a small market.
It is just mainly a hobby that brings in a few bucks in retirement.
I am much better at producing the lumber than selling it as my love of sawdust precludes my love for the dollar.
Also it keeps me out of my wife's hair.
Kubota 8540 tractor, FEL bucket and forks, Farmi winch
Kubota 900 RTV
Polaris 570 Sportsman ATV
3 Huskies 1 gas Echo 1 cordless Echo vintage Homelite super xl12
57 acres of woodland

JP135

I bought my little LT15 used. I was only working part-time a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon. I bought the mill having never seen one in person, much less used one. It was just something I knew I'd love.

A friend has a big piece of property near us. He gave me a key and told me to cut down as many cedar trees as I wanted. I ran an ad on Craigslist and started selling a little lumber.

I developed a word-of-mouth clientele from the CL ads and have about as much work as I need to stay busy and keep a little bit of "walking around" money in my pocket.

I'm back working full time plus now, but I've still got word of mouth customers who keep me plenty busy. If I lost my full-time job tomorrow, I know I could turn the sawmill into a full-time job within two weeks.

If I ever go full-time with the mill, I'll start making some furniture and look into moldings and log siding for value-added products.

Peter Drouin

I have been selling lumber a long time.
What gets me is when you have 3 or 4 orders in your head and trying to cut them at the same time and keep it straight in your head smiley_dizzy :D
A&P saw Mill LLC.
45' of Wood Mizer, cutting since 1987.
License NH softwood grader.

redbeard

I started with 12K BF of Circle sawn lumber that I had milled from my property. I started out parking out my 5 acres and took the saw logs to a Buddy's Mobile Dimension 128 mill. Was going to build a barn in the middle of my park. Well I got hooked on sawmilling and pulled the trigger on my band mill and people started showing up wanting boards so I had enough inventory to jump start the business. That was in 2006. Mill took the Barns footprint and the park has turned into a wonderful woodlot. Still selling boards and growing each year.
Whidbey Woodworks and Custom Milling  2019 Cooks AC 3662T High production band mill and a Hud-son 60 Diesel wide cut bandmill  JD 2240 50hp Tractor with 145 loader IR 1044 all terrain fork lift  Cooks sharp

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