Thinking about retail lumber prices

[twoodward15]

So I got to thinking about the big lumber price debate we had a few months ago.  I was thinking about me saying I can buy pretty much anything for a buck a bdft.  Well, unfortunately the price is up to $1.50 a bdft.  Anyway, this isn't the point.  I was remembering how much some of you guys get for your lumber, then I got to thinking about this place about 5 minutes from my house.  I can buy birds eye maple there for just a hair over $4 a bdft there.  Now, If you did get a maple tree that happened to be birds eye, what would you charge for it.  This maple has a lot of eyes and looks great.  I'm just thinking, how can they sell it so cheap????  This is kiln dried lumber!  It's about the same price as the red oak that some of you sell!  This is FAS birds eye maple full of eyes.  Small or big, you choose.  Anyone want to start trading the stuff????

[oakiemac]

$4/bdft is cheap? I need to find me some maple trees with blind birds nesting in 'em. :D

[DanG]

Makes me think about the fella that brought the walnut logs to me, a rarity in our area. He was all excited that it is worth $7bf. I kept spraying cold water on him, telling him that maybe 4bf of it was worth $7, and the rest between a quarter and a dollar. It didn't do no good. He drove away with his half all sawed up, with dollar signs flashing in his tallights. ;)

[MemphisLogger]

DanG,

Sounds like a lot of my custom sawing customers

Got a call a month ago about a huge Shumard Oak having to come down to make way for a swimming pool. Guy says he knows there's a couple thousand dollars worth of QS in its 40" diameter trunk (one good 13' log, including the swell).  :

I told him we'd be lucky to quarter out 800 bdft or so and if it's good he might sell it green for $1/bdft or kilned at $2 or 3.  ;)

He says fine, as long as he makes somethin' on it, he doesn't want to see it get wasted.  

Anyhow, I show up and find out that it's one of the richest guys in town--one of the owners of our local NBA franchise. I guess that's how he got so rich--pinchin' pennies and always finding the "value" in anything he sees.   ;)

We sawed it and took it to the kiln and I just got the call back--"we need 250 sq ft of random width T&G for one of the rooms in the new pool house."

I says, "now there's your value, a random width QS floor for a little over $1.50/sq ft after you get done paying me, the kiln and the millworks."  8)

And . . . his kids got to climb all over me while I was workin'  ;D    


  


When i get to the

[Ron Wenrich]

Birds eye maple is such a rarity, we don't even bother to seperate it out.  By the time you get around to seperating it out, drying it, throwing out the degrade, and bickering with would-be buyers, it just ain't worth the time invested.

That comes from more of an industrial standpoint.  We produce lumber from logs, and at a pretty good clip.  Our profit margin lies in the fact that we can produce lumber cheaper than our competition.  And we don't keep inventory.

Now, for those guys that want to pull lumber and cater to the retail market, those prices are about double what the green markets are.  That's a healthy profit if you can take the time to massage a customer who thinks that a few hundred dollar sale is a big deal.  I sell a load of ties for $5k, and the buyer isn't fussy.  I've seen loads of cherry veneer in the $25k range.

Right now I have some Ambrosia (wormy) maple that the boss thought was too good to throw out.  Its been sitting on sticks for 2 years.  We have sassafras that's been sitting on sticks for over 7 years.  Clear pine on sticks for 3-5 years.  

Now, if I was drying lumber and selling to the retail crowd, I would consider doubling my money for every time I had to handle it.  So, your $4 birdseye is about right, if you're buying from commercial operations.  Because most guys we sell to don't really want the birdseye.  Its hard to match

[twoodward15]

Ron, as you now I am a woodworker, so what you said really applies to me.  That has to be one of the best explanations I have heard.  Now I understand a little bit better.  It's hard to believe that you don't separate it out.  Do you separate any of it or does all maple pretty much just go in the maple pile???  No curly or quilted maple, it's just all maple?  I guess what you said makes sence.  It's not worth the time and effort to separate it out as time is money!  Wow, I'd like to look through your piles for some curly maple.  That stuff is hard to find here and extremely expensive when you do.   I've seen it top $15 a bdft.  Heck, I'd pay $3 easy for it, but we all know I'm too cheap to pay more than that!!  hahaha

[Ron Wenrich]

We rarely saw any hard maple.  We might get 1 Mbf every once in awhile, which we sell to a butcher block company. I haven't seen any bird-eye and very little with curl.

We do get some curly red oak, white oak, soft maple and birch from time to time.  I know I have a market for this stuff in all grades, but it is the same whether it has curl or not.

To seperate it, a mill should have a known buyer and a known price.  I've seperated stuff for guys in the past, and usually they are no shows.  What happens is that a guy says he wants a certain type of wood.  Usually he is interested in a few boards.  I get a couple of hundred bf in a day of the stuff and that's too much, so they don't even bother again.  

I had one guy who was going to make slab tables.  He was going to pay $20/slab.  Within a few days I had 20 slabs.  He never came back.

Not only time is money, but so is space.  After awhile you have a lot of little orders sitting around waiting for someone to pick them up.  You start stacking orders on top of each other, then the guy shows up for the one on the bottom.  Usually they have a small truck that can't handle the load.  Some of those are a real joy to load.

Pick through the piles?  We can put out a load of grade lumber in a day, if we have good logs.  What we saw on Monday and Tuesday is at the lumber buyer by Friday.  And we're a pretty small operation.

You will have the best luck in getting the kind of stock you want if you had a way of drying it.  Most operations don't have kilns.  As long as a guy makes a habit of showing up, he can get the stock.  Fool me once, shame on me....... ;)

[twoodward15]

excellent info Ron,  Wish I was closer to you, but like you said about the small guy (that's me) I wouldn't be able to handle the volume you need to move.  I'm looking at 200bdft at a time as a lot for me right now, and I'll only have to buy twice a year.  (200 bdft of each species).  thanks for the info!  If anyone near me has curly maple for sale, let me know!!  Not a promise to buy, just need to know where I can get it!!  Even very light figure is acceptable!