Red Oak Log Storage

[bobvan]

This fall I plan to cut down 250 Red oaks.  Plan on 100" lengths. Not sure if I should make some 12 ft. as well.  If I can not get them processed into lumber before winter what's the danger of storing till spring? The soil is sandy and always dry if that matters.  I assume the logs need to be off the ground and I will anchor seal them in some fashion.  How long do I have, in general, before they degrade? Should they be covered? Also I will have to deal with the tops and my only idea is get into a single location and sell by pick up load.  I have a 40 hp. tractor with a bucket and forks to move logs and fire wood but no other way of moving the tops material off my property.  How to get the logs processed into lumber is another subject altogether. Mainly want to protect logs for now.  Reason I can't leave them in tree form is I have an anxious buyer for the property.

[OneWithWood]

Bob, it might be best all around to hire a consulting forester to cruise and market the timber.  Let the pro loggers handle the logs and tops, if need be.  You can always request a few logs for yourself.
It will take you way longer than you think to harvest the trees yourself.  Also you will have converted the trees to cash faster and could actually come out ahead when you factor in all the costs you would incur to try and do it all yourself.

[thecfarm]

The tops is what will take along time. I can take the logs and saw them up quick. Than the tops need to come out.    Takes time to saw the limbs off and haul them out.

[Bill Saf]

What I would do is have the timber cruised get inventory of trees to be cut and add the stumpage to your price of the land that you want to sell. you make market value on the trees and you don't have to do any cutting. if you cut and sell now the market just is not there for red oak at least not here where I'm at and if I was buying land that was just cut I would offer less money for the land. Just my 0.02 cents worth

Bill

[bobvan]

Thanks gentlemen.  All really good Ideas.   I am an only child so I always tend to try and do everything myself or as much as I can.   The land is sold if I want to let it go.  The buyer has seen and approved the trees  I'm planning on taking.  I am not all that excited about selling but it is a consideration.  I still don't know if and how long I can store logs.  I had a local guy that is in the business of buying trees on the stump quote and his numbers seemed very low. I also spoke with a hazard tree remover that's been cutting hard to take down trees for thirty years and he indicated that there was much more value than quoted.  If I can store the logs it will buy me time to make my next decision.  How to turn into boards. My three options as I see it.
1. Hire the logs trucked to the Amish.  Truck cost 5 to 8 cents / bd. ft. 15 cents/ bd. ft. to have sawn. 
2. Buy an LT35 and do it myself or
3. Hire a Wood-Mizer to come to land and process on site. 25 to 40 cents/bd. ft. or $60 to $90/ Hr.
I have a ton more questions about grading and drying but primarily I need to know how to store logs if that is even a possibility.  Then I will ask my next set of questions. I know its a big job but I would really like to take a whack at it.  I forgot to mention I have a pro that will get the trees on the ground and cut into logs.  That's all he does for a living.  I have to move them to a staging area for the next step which I hope will be safely storing them as an option. Could also be trucking them away or sawing them onsite.

[Okrafarmer]

Sounds like trucking them to the Amish is your best bet, of the three you mentioned. But what would you DO with all that lumber once you had it? I assume you would want to sell a lot of it.

In which case you are probably better off to talk to a consulting forester and ask for somebody to buy the logs as stumpage off the property, as others mentioned, because trying to sell green lumber is a difficult thing to do. Not impossible, but difficult.

Also, the Woodmizer / personal sawmill model might be something to look at if you are planning to keep the land and do not have to cut the trees all at once.

Cutting 250 oaks by yourself in one year's time would be a struggle unless you have the heavy equipment to handle it. You will be struggling with a small tractor, depending on the size of the trees. I'm not saying it isn't possible, but it's going to be harder than you may think, especially with the kind of time crunch you're talking about.

[scsmith42]

Your red oak logs will store fairly well until the temperatures start to climb above 50 degrees F.  After that, they will start to stain, degrade and become infested with bugs.

Wood stores best in tree form, second best in lumber form, and worst in log form.

Once the wood is sawn you will also need to sticker it with dry stickers, else you will get stain between the green stickers and the boards (reducing it's value).

You did not say the average diameters of the logs; but one thing to consider is that instead of harvesting everything you may want to consider select cutting.

[thechknhwk]

Where abouts is this at?  Sounds like a call I got a few months ago.  10 acres, 50,000 board feet....

[bobvan]

Based on all this good info,  I'm going to start with 5,000 bd. ft.  2 for me 3 to sell to see if there is a market.  logs should average 15".  I will use breeze dry stickers. I may have called about 2 months ago. The trees are in central Michigan. I should be able to do this yet this fall. It will also let me know how hard the top are to deal with.  I haven't studied the forum. Is there any place here or elsewhere that dollar and cents pricing and marketing are discussed.  I always feel like a complete outsider and have yet to find open discussions about the wood business in general. I want to be in the retail end not the wholesale end of the business.  Thanks for talking me into downsizing my project. I think its more doable and reasonable. If I can't handle 5000 bd. ft. I'm kidding myself.

[Ron Wenrich]

I can't address the retail too much.  I never dealt in it, as I was always in the commercial end.  Loggers fall into that category.  The best loggers are usually the best at marketing.  They have developed those markets along the lines of the best utilization, which ends up being the best price.  They will separate out veneer and sell to a select group of buyers.  Sawlogs will go to another or multiple locations, dependent on species and grade.  There may also be pulp and firewood. 

For stumpage, I always put a value at stumpage = log sales price - mfg costs - profit.  The breakeven takes profit = $0.  For you to make better money than what is offered for your stumpage, you'll either have to have a higher sales price for the logs, or a lower logging cost.  The professional logger would have large equipment and could move it out in the shortest amount of time.  That would guarantee good supply of green logs to the next producer.  If you would happen to find a better market for logs, would you be able to move enough volume to satisfy that market before degrade kicks in?

But, you're talking about taking that to the next level by moving it into lumber.  The same thing that is said for loggers can be said for millers.  We have to have multiple markets to satisfy the different quality of lumber that is put out in a log.  We also have to have markets for our waste, like sawdust, slabs/chips, bark and shavings.  Without that, you end up with an expense instead of an asset.  To resolve that back to log value = lumber value (includes waste) - mfg costs - profit.  Do you think you can have lower mfg costs than another mill?

There are different values in lumber.  It is all dependent on defect.  Chances are, you won't be able to get better value for veneer quality logs.  A lot of handling will go into the lumber that is offset by the increased grade.  But, with the small volume you're talking about, you might have to sidestep that.  As you get into a log, the grade will start to drop where you hit defect.  The defect is primarily the knots.  Eventually you get into so many knots that it is worth usage as either pallet stock or construction material.  As a miller, you're going to have to know when to stop making boards and when to make make low grade dimension stock.  Best to find markets for low grade, as it will be harder to move at retail levels.

But, you're talking about moving it up to the retail level to offset the commercial market.  Now you will be talking about storing lumber, the carrying costs involved, degrade, and any secondary processes you want to put to it, like planing.  When you cut the stock, you're cutting totally on speculation, unless you have a buyer.  When I cut at the commercial end, I had a buyer for everything from every flake of sawdust to every board that fell off the log. 

And you're going to have to market the material.  It might be easy, but if it was easy we'd all be doing it.  You'll also be dealing with lots of small customers.  That eats up a lot of time. 

So, it boils down to how much time and capital you want to invest in a project.  You can get a couple of different loggers in to give a quote.  Or you can invest to try to find better markets and hope you get a few more bucks for your efforts.  Don't neglect what you think your learning curve is going to be, then double it.

[thechknhwk]

We could do 5000 bd ft in a weekend easy.  I would be happy to help you get your feet wet with the whole sawing experience.  Sorry I cannot help you with marketing the lumber, but I'd love to saw it all up for ya :D :D 

[bobvan]

Talk about a learning curve.  I just spent over and hour to craft a reply to Ron and all.  I covered all his good advise and input.  I thought towards the end I would attach a photo to my message to show the type of material I have.  It said I do not have permission to post a photo.  I thought maybe because I'm so new. Either way I hit submit and it vaporized.  I must have been logged out.  Yikes! I think I need to better understand the workings of this forum.  Is there not a draft save somewhere that I could recover? Sorry for my ignorance.

[Okrafarmer]

Oy, sorry, I'm not sure what happened there. Sorry for the inconvenience. . . . Hope one of the tech guys can help you figure it out.

[thecfarm]

No drafts to my knowledge. I have heard of it happening to others. I think most paste and copy every so often when it's a long post.

[Jeff]

The last couple of days we have had been intermittently been under attacks from bots on the forum mail servers trying to brute force hack into it. There have been several times I have had to reboot the web server during this, and in between, the attacks have the server resources under such load that the website does not want to respond. Very very good chance that a post submitted during one of those incidences could have resulted in total packet loss.  Especially if one was trying to craft a long post, odds are, you could have ran into this problem.  I have to reboot the webserver to save the information to the I.P. tables as I try to block the offending I.P. addresses.  The server is regularly attacked, but this week, it had been especially heavy.

[bobvan]

Ron,

   Thank you for all your great ideas. I learn so much every time I post a question.  I tried to send a huge response yesterday to address all the subjects you brought to light. I lost it and am too busy to try again. just know that I really appreciate all your efforts helping me thru this process.

Best
Bob Van

[Okrafarmer]

Yikes, Jeff, that sounds like a real chore!  I hope you keep the upper hand on those bot-critters.