The sawmiller's juggling act

[paul case]

My family and I have been trying to do daily production sawing for about 3 years now and  it is hard to get this thing to even out sometimes. We are either spent up on buying logs or out of them. I have had times when I went to the woods and was the only one to bring logs in for over 2 weeks. Then at times I will have 5 tractor trailer loads sitting waiting(usually out in the hot dry summer sun) on us to get them sawed.

I do buy and log some tracts of timber or hire the logging done, but still it is a juggling act.  I would be happy to get my logs from one logger if he could bring in 1 tractor trailer load a week. It seems like that is impossible. The weather and equipment breakdowns and available trucking seem to have them running in spurts where I may get 3 loads bought and delivered all at once and then nothing for 6 weeks.

I thought it was just my size operation and the guys that saw 25,000 bdft a week near me probably have it all ironed out but it seems that isn't the case. I am down to 2 days or less of logs on the lot right now(thats what brought this rant on) so I called 2 neighbor sawmills and neither if them have logs to spare at this time. The last time 1 of them called me when he had extra logs I had more than I could saw in 2 months.

I would like to get so that I could saw some on the older mill while my son Scott saws with the newer one but I cant seem to get enough logs piled up at the mill lately that I know he wouldn't run out. It is good to be all cleaned up sometimes but I hate to run out.

Bibbymans log lot management thread has been constant reading for me.
It is some kind of balancing act for me and I dont quite have it down yet. How about you?

[4x4American]

I will be following this thread...  I haven't gotten anything down pat yet, and it's been about the biggest challenge of my operation.  There are a lot of guys logging around here, so just talking with different loggers and asking where their buddies are cutting and then getting their phone numbers and calling around has worked. 
Quite often, I end up spending a day or two hauling logs to my mill.  I can fit approx 1mbf of 8-10' logs on my gooseneck, and last week I had 2mbf of 14-16' pine on.  But I hate doing it and it takes quite a few trips to get in what a truck and pup could bring in.  But when you can't get a truckload and need logs, short of logging myself with my 2wd farm tractor on steep ground, I've found it easier and more productive to go buy logs with my gooseneck.  There is a concentration yard 15 minutes south of me, and I've been getting alot of my tie/pallet grade from them.  But they can't feed me enough logs, I wish they could send me a truck a week.  There's another yard maybe 30 min away and he's just not got much going on, but every so often I'll get some from him. 


I spoke with another sawmill's concentration yard last week, trying to buy tie logs, but they won't sell me them, as they need all they can get.  They would sell me #1, 2, and 3 saw logs, but the prices are crazy.  I don't think I'd be able to make money on them so I haven't tried, but they have a good reputation and I know that I would get what I wanted (besides tie logs).  Plus, they have multitudes of trucks coming in per day to their yard.  Many loggers in the area sell to them.  In fact, it was a local FF member who sent me to them.  I think that if I could get the numbers they gave me to work, it could be a good relationship because they wouldn't have any issues sending me a tt load/week, they have so many logs coming in and out of there, and they scale/grade every one and put a scan tag on the end of each one, so you know what you're getting, and if there's a problem, you can surely get it taken care of.


Now the big grade hardwood sawmill near me has started buying low grade hardwood logs for crane mats at 400/mbf so that's making getting lower grade logs even harder to attain.  But they are buying them at 16', so that might help me out a little.  I was thinking that if I paid the same for, say log grade hardwood 18' long, I could buck that into 2- 9' tie logs and gain a little on the footage due to taper. 


I have been trying to get some wholesale pine markets going because it's easy enough to get and it's usually always a straight run price.  I don't love sawing that sticky stuff, but it can be fun at times, just the speed at which you can saw, and there's usually not too much stress in our ewp, it's very forgiving to saw.

[drobertson]

Paul, never did, the big mills snatched most of the good loggers, some of the rift brought some at times mostly junk,
I ended up almost strictly custom sawing till the back gave way, sure miss it now buddy,,you know that's a fact. Winter is getting ever so close now it could get spurty again a few times before next spring.  Hang in!!!

[barbender]

I don't care how big you get, or how small you stay, log supply will always be a problem. I watch our local mills, even the Potlatch stud mill, struggle with supply constantly. Sometimes in the spring, they will run a few days, and then shut down until they get enough wood to fire up again for a few days. Other mills are similar. When we can move wood, the whole northern MN loggging force can too, so the mills get swamped. Then it gets wet, and the wood stops moving. Potlatch probably struggles the most because they don't want their softwood to blue stain, so they can only build up so much of an inventory when it's warm out.

[Kbeitz]

Location Location Location .... I cant keep up with all the free logs that is given to me.
I got around 150 logs on the lot right now and I got to go pick up some free walnut tomorrow.
I have a friend that has 50 acres of hemlock that's free for me to cut. All big trees.
I should get a bigger faster mill but I don't think that what I want to be doing all the time.

[longtime lurker]

I try and hold a months supply in the yard, and by Christmas try and have 3 months supply on hand because rain stops play for the wet season sometime around then.

The word is "try". In reality it's a feast or famine thing that gets further complicated by species. Sometimes we can have the yard full and still not have logs suitable for some orders by application.

The only things I know for sure are to always cut the worst logs first and hold the best for a reserve, and keep cash in reserve to buy more. Not every log can cut a 12x3 for instance, but it ain't hard to bang 4x2's out of trash. Real good logs that can make money always become available when I'm broke.

I also prefer tree length rather then CTL. It requires gear that can lift whole logs, but there's a lot of versatility in being able to walk out with a chainsaw and cut lengths to suit an order with the maximum chance of something useful left over. One of the great problems with timber- can't just weld it back together.

[paul case]

Lurker,
I guess I don't understand why you would cut the worst logs first?

I dont always try to do the same thing. Sometimes we cut a lot of low grade ahead of butt logs and sometimes we cut the butt logs and hi grade first. That depends on the weather and orders. If it is above 90 and i dont have room to store them inside then the better logs get cut first as they will sap stain and any place with the bark knocked off will dry out and crack real bad which causes them to loose value. Sometimes we cut a lot of low grade pallet logs first as we have a 3x4 market that runs in spurts. I also can only get so many pallet stringers cut  and delivered in 1 week, or maybe a custom order for barn siding or rustic paneling.

Mostly what we do is ties which are 7x9-8'8'' and grade which is 1.25''xwide and pallet stringers which are 1.25''x3.5''-4'. The 3x4's we cut must be 10'4''. I get all my logs CTL as it takes extra time and equipment to handle tree length and has no extra advantage to me. We are all hardwood and white oak, red oak and post oak are all that I currently sell for grade lumber.
I have found it to be a serious time consumer to have to be trimming logs to length so we try to get them at the length we want to use them at.

4x4

I have sawn a lot of logs from other mills and my opinion of them is not too good. It got me through but it gets easy to see they will send you stuff they dont want to saw or that is not good enough to do for what i am sawing. I have cut a lot of loads of it. There is always a few they put in it that are pure junk. Should have been left in the woods. Makes no sense to me to pay to have it hauled. I hope you have better luck.

As you may have guessed I am about out of logs, but I got permission to log 80 acres with some pretty good red oak on it 1/4 mile from home. I have 2 tractor/gooseneck loggers that are starting on it first of the week so maybe it will loosen up a bit.

MORE LOGS PLEASE!.

PC

[ozarkgem]

Paul its not just sawmilling where this problem exist. Seems like every business I have been in has bottle necks. I get something designed with off the shelf parts and start selling them and suddenly one component becomes obsolete and I have to shake the trees to find replacement parts. Maybe with the logs being only a 1/4 away this will help.
Jim

[longtime lurker]

Different country, different market expectations I guess.
My bread and butter is hardwood framing. In this country that's sold in multiples of 300mm generally, 300 mm being the metric equivalent of a foot because yanno... We went to metric 50 years ago but that meant new tape measures, not new span tables for building standards. Also "normal" is lengths out to 6 m / 20': put posts on 10' centers and no builder here would ever order ten foot lengths, they'll want doubles for sure.
So for us, getting length is part of the issue we face. I struggle to find markets for framing lengths under 10', I meet buyer resistance if flooring packs don't average at least 15', and the idea of end matching shorts together won't fly. They want us to end match 20' flooring lengths so they can join off cuts together. Imported wood they'll take in 8' lengths, but not domestic.

It don't have to make sense, we just have to deal with it. This weeks framing book looks like 3x6 at 11, 12' and 21'. 2x6's at 14, 15 and 16, 2x8 at 18, plus a heap of 3x1½roof batten which will be random lengths in a 22' pack. Framing species get stored in the yard by application and length rather then species to a large degree... general framing is mixed species unless otherwise ordered, and we charge 5% premium for single colour eg mixed reds and 10% premium for a single species framing order. The most common colour is ACQ brown anyway.

So that's largely why I like tree length or 45', whichever is greater - better utilization. I can grab a log, cut 21' off him for the longest order, toss whatever's left in the right length pile, and somewhere down the road that might get cut again or be the right length for the next job. The object is to not end up with a length under 10' long on the log deck.
I rarely trim a log in the yard regardless or application. If I want 12' lengths and I got 14' logs I saw them at 14 and dock individual boards once sawn. Not every board from a log makes a given order, so why limit where it can go on the next job by shortening a log.

By always cut the worst log first I should have said always cut the smallest log first rather then the lowest grade: better to cut four small logs for an order rather then 1 good one because the good one invariably can have sawn something better. Again it's about utilization, putting the best logs into the highest value orders. It's surprising just how many small mills never quite figure that one out, they save time  turning big logs to small boards but then get left with small logs and couldn't fill an order for larger cross sections if it comes in.

In all this I'm lucky. We don't have much sap stain issue in our hardwoods, though borers can give us a hiding at times but they only annoy the sapwood. We do spray the log piles with insecticide in a vain attempt to keep the population under control, but it rains a lot so it washes off a lot. Logs can lie down the back of the yard for years in some species and apart from degraded sapwood all they really do is get harder and acquire more spring. Not that I like doing that, it's bad practice and I'd rather saw them and store sawn timber. But for many of our species it is an option.

You got no idea of how envious I am of the idea of truckloads of 12' logs and builders who can join wood together...

[JustinW_NZ]

longtime lurker - similar here in NZ

The hardwoods here in NZ are only used for flooring or some appearance type product in general.
So end matching for flooring is accepted.
There is always the sliding scale of price which will shift shorter material, gets the cheap buyers every time.

I try and really work with our log suppliers if we need something extra long or specific, and they are pretty good at supplying.
The main supplier in our area however will cut and stand of hardwood while they are cutting the pine beside it and suddenly give us a weeks warning - We have 300-400 tons of eucalypt here tell us what you want and whatever's left goes to firewood...
THAT gets hard on cashflow... especially when it could be 6 months before they do any more.
It really is that size thing, you either have to be big enough to play in that bigger game or stay out of it with your own timber sources in my view..

Cheers
Justin

[longtime lurker]

longtime lurker - similar here in NZ

I try and really work with our log suppliers if we need something extra long or specific, and they are pretty good at supplying.
The main supplier in our area however will cut and stand of hardwood while they are cutting the pine beside it and suddenly give us a weeks warning - We have 300-400 tons of eucalypt here tell us what you want and whatever's left goes to firewood...
THAT gets hard on cashflow... especially when it could be 6 months before they do any more.
It really is that size thing, you either have to be big enough to play in that bigger game or stay out of it with your own timber sources in my view..

Cheers
Justin

Yeah mate, same same. We have a small crown allocation, not enough and too much sometimes by species mix - good appearance/ flooring timber but no Royal species in it which means I struggle for Class 1's for in ground use. Plenty ironbark on the back side of the range but a lot of pipe comes with it and freight kills them quick. I get a lot of variable grade euc logs: they'll cut appearance on the outside, structural in the middle, and dirt in the center... Or Mahogany that'll shift from tight vein to loose vein and throws them back out  to structural halfway down a board.
Rainforest species for joinery etc is usually clean but is all privately sourced and its feast or famine, use it or loose it to someone else.

We're vertically integrated not because I want to run my own harvest, but because if I had to depend solely on someone else to put logs in the yard I'd be having to take that 400 tons at a time. Ok if they were consistently good I guess, but it never works that way does it? At least this way my issue is can't be everywhere at once rather then no logs to saw.

[4x4American]

I haven't bought any logs from any other mills yet, but I can imagine...

[paul case]

Longtime Lurker,
It sounds like you are in a totally different planet( i was gona say country) than I am. Everything you do is just about backwards to our usual here. It must be that other side of the equator thing.

I would suspect that out average tree of any species here in the edge of the ozarks only has 3 ten foot logs in it. That wouldnt make sense to haul tree length anything unless you had a grinder or pulp wood market for us. Just about every logger I know of here still cuts them down with a chainsaw, skids them to a landing where they are to cut to the sawmills specs and loaded and hauled to the mill. I really dont care form the way that the guys that have an automated cutter here operate as they generally cut down to a 10'' stump and it almost ruins the regrowth possibilities. We try to leave the little stuff so maybe we (the next generation) can cut it again.

I dont know of anyone in our great nation(except for me) that still would build a house  with hardwood. Practically the only thing you can get that has the approved grade stamp for structural is Spruce Pine and Fir (SPF for short) Hardwoods certainly work and do well but not many dare to use them for that as they are generally worth more in some sort of flooring  or??

That is all beside the point. I am not running your way down. It is kinda neat to see the differences from place to place.

PC

[JustinW_NZ]

Paul - its even worse here all the framing lumber is pine and treated pine at that - CCA treated to be even worse!

Hardwoods are not the norm and while people like them for flooring etc the foresters liked planting softwoods that grow quick (25 to 30years for a rotation of pine) and just over 30 years for doug fir which of course mills can take a lot of quickly and spit out a lot of product.
(local mill does 100cubic meters of sawn timber an hour (every hour)- not sure what that is in board feet but a lot!)
However these supermills can only handle the pine softwood.

We took on a business partner a couple of years ago and shifted from the very small portable miller for everyone to a portable or static miller with more of our own interests in it as well..
Our partner bought 1100heactares of forest land into the mix so over time we will never need march to others tunes (hopefully) but it does create other issues or different distractions in the same stroke!

I don't like the thought of being left 'hung out to dry' by the market or a grumpy log supplier so this was really part of our due diligence going forward...

I think the basic concept is the same from the beginning of the thread though.. feast or famine, and cashflow is often king...

Cheers
Justin

[Ianab]

Like Justin says, NZ forestry is about 98% plantation softwood. ~90% Radiata pine, and ~8% Douglas Fir in the cooler areas.

The 2% is "everything else", and small scale stuff like the Eucalyptus, natives and a few other oddballs.

[JustinW_NZ]

Like Justin says, NZ forestry is about 98% plantation softwood. ~90% Radiata pine, and ~8% Douglas Fir in the cooler areas.

The 2% is "everything else", and small scale stuff like the Eucalyptus, natives and a few other oddballs.

In nelson/tasman area as the doug fir comes out its not being replanted any more either.
bit short sighted!!

Cheers
Justin

[longtime lurker]

We here in Australia have been blessed with some pretty good native timber species for structural applications. Incredibly strong, incredibly durable, often quite beautiful. Them's the pluses. On the minus side we get incredibly hard and incredibly heavy, which rules them out for a lot of applications. So we build houses out of them, or used to.

here as else where the mills like me face a lot of pressure from plantation pine. Pine is cheap. I can buy KD pine retail cheaper then I can produce green structural hardwood boards in my own mill. Its soft enough to make building economical and easy - no need to predrill holes. No need to pilot hole the predrill holes for bolts, and you dont need 120psi of pressure on a nail gun and a hammer to finish driving the nails home. Treated pine is durable enough to meet building codes. 40 years they reckon. Post the last big cyclone through here i inspected a lot of destroyed (untreated) hardwood houses... most of them around the 80-100 year old mark. The wood was fine, you could pull the nails and go again. It was the bolts and nails and fittings that had rusted off that caused them to fail.

Problem I face is that very much we have high demand for certain applications that use the best characteristics of these timbers . Long span beams and joists because of the strength. Exposed decking and external work that wont rot or decay. Hardwood floors you can jump on in high heels and not leave more then a scuff on the polish. Those kinda things.

But pine has eaten away at the demand for the other things because we all know that even with a good log the whole thing cant make wide/ big / long boards. The market for the smaller stuff like 3x2's for noggin, or downgrade like pallet timbers is now dominated by pine. I truely believe that -with the euc hardwoods - finding a market for shorts is the difference between a mill that survives and one that can't. And theres a double standard being applied. Fingerjointed pine fascia and barge boards are okay, but I cant shift fingerjointed hardwood for the same application, it has to be in 20' clear lengths.*eyeroll*

The real issue is builders who were spoilt by an exceptional resource for generations.

Anyway as a matter of interest (cause I'm way off topic here but who cares) I pulled some comparison numbers on a couple of species to see how they compared.

Species:                                  American White Oak                        Flooded Gum              Grey Ironbark
Density (lb/ cubic foot)                               47                                        39                                   75
Modulus of Rupture (psi):                      15229                                   17694                             26251
Modulus of Elasticity(psi):                       1740                                     2465                               3480
Janka hardness (lbf)                               1360                                     1125                               3664

The white oak you need no introduction to. Flooded gum is a species I cut a lot of - similar properties to the ash type eucalypts that JustinW gets in NZ. Might run across it in the USA under the trade name red/rose grandis or brazilian eucalypt because they have large plantations of it there. Grey Ironbark is one of the super duper strong and heavy eucs we cut on occasion... lasts forever, cant bend it break it or drive nails in it and your house will stand for a couple hundred years barring acts of god. Those three little pigs shoulda got a better class of stick.

Back on topic I think Justin has the right of it. Ultimately the only way to guarantee supply is to own land or the timber rights too it. You can still use a logger but theres a lot of difference between paying someone to cut "your" logs for your mill and paying them to bring whatever they can get from whereever at whatever price they wish to charge. And its only a truck, a skidder and a saw from paying a contractor to being the contractor if it all goes sour.

[bandmiller2]

Guess this is why there are very few small sawmill owners that are wealthy, from the mill anyways. Like Kbeitzy I have always had more logs than I could cut, free, and I'am still not rich. Frank C.

[WDH]

free walnut

I could stand some of that. 

[ellmoe]

 Paul. you will never have an optimal year with your log supply. I have been buying logs for over 30 years and came to realize that fact many years ago. Maintaining a healthy inventory is the best weapon you have. I am reminded of my Uncles that were farmers when I was a child. I would listen to their stories/complaints growing up and I 'd hear , "It's too wet", "it's too dry", "it's too hot", "it's too cold", "the markets bad, because good weather increased everyone crop".... I finally asked one Uncle, "was the ever a time when everything was perfect?. After a pause, He simply stated, " nope!", but he kept on farming! I guess he liked the challenge!  ;D

[paul case]

It is a challenge alright!

I have 4 markets that can just about use all I can cut and they do me good at paying. Only one of them must grade it before they pay. It took me a few years to get here. I can do real well at sawing for these. It is actually better than custom sawing at $.35 bdft. The thing that keeps me wanting to do that rather than custom is the markets I sell to are generally quicker to pay and pick up( some I deliver) than most customers I have dealt with.

I already recieved enough logs to keep us running another day just this morning. Things are looking up!

PC

[paul case]

Ahhh. now another hitch in the plan.

I had 1 of the gooseneck loggers show up yesterday and get started on a new patch of timber just 1/4 mile from my mill. He brought in 2300 feet and only worked from 8 to 2 as he had to get his kids after school. Thats good. Enough logs here to keep us working for a couple days and I am not sure that we are working tomorrow at all as we are hauling our calves to market for Friday.

The hitch is we have gotten over an inch of rain since midnight and it is still coming down. No logging today.

I know that we could get quite a bit ahead in a week if I can get both GN loggers to working. Probably will work out so that we have all kinds of logs when it dries up a little. I hope.

PC

[sandsawmill14]

Location Location Location .... I cant keep up with all the free logs that is given to me.
I got around 150 logs on the lot right now and I got to go pick up some free walnut tomorrow.
I have a friend that has 50 acres of hemlock that's free for me to cut. All big trees.
I should get a bigger faster mill but I don't think that what I want to be doing all the time.

it all depends on how much you saw    my timberking mill would be similar to pauls WM far as production and if i was down to 150 tie logs i would be worried  thats only 3 days work but if that was 150 30"+ logs they could last 2-3 weeks so i would feel safe as long as they didnt stop bring logs

we are just starting to run the s&w mill and i know we dont have enough money to keep it in logs all time so we will saw all we can buy and try to work up to full production but it takes ALOT of money to just stay a week ahead if you have very much production   i know one of the loggers that hauls to where i am sawing got a check for 48,000.00 1 week and he was logging for my boss on the 3rds but he moves alot of wood i dont know how many loads that week but he brought 13 tt loads 1 day

[Peter Drouin]

True sandsawmill14, A guy can have a  lot of $$$$ in logs and lumber.

[sandsawmill14]

yep its you wonder why a guy with enough money to keep a big mill in logs would bother  ??? why not just retire and go fishing :D :D :D