What would cedars big enough to make a square 6" 16' long be worth?
The person wants 24-30 of them and will be cutting them down and handing them.
Area is the western tip of Virginia.
Thanks for input and let me know if any other info is helpful.
Is the customer supplying the logs for you to saw? Cedar can be tricky when it comes to timbers as it seems just about the time you almost get to the target size they have a "surprise" factor that reveals itself.
The trees are mine and the person who wants them can mill them.
Ok - gotcha. If they are straight and sound, around here top dollar would be $150 / MBF stumpage rate.
It takes a mighty nice cedar to get a 16' x 6" beam. 9" +/- small end.
He will be picking some of the nicest straightest trees in your woods. What will be left. How much damage just to get those trees out? Will he pay for the rest of the tree to 4"?
I would think 150/thousand would be for woods run trees of all sizes and quality. Here it is about 125/thousand standing cedar. But can vary from 100 to 250 depending on the woods.
This is measure on the cedar scale.
A 16' log should have 2 measurements. One at small end and one at middle. No cedar logger in his right mind would sell 16' when they could get more for 2 @ 8'. But they would be happy to buy them at 16' and measure the small end only.
Thanks for the input. A little more info would be I'd be able to chose and most are around wood line so other damage would be minimal. And some could stand to be gone from a few places. I just bought the place and a neighbor who leases the place is the one who wants the trees for post for a hay barn.
He offered 20-25 dollars a tree. I see you can get treated post that size for 45ish. I do know there would be a good bit of boards sawn off getting to the 6x6.
Sounds like the 'profit' would be in the side boards. Problem is all the edging and end trimming different length because of the taper in 16 footers. And then the stickering of the side boards [of different lengths] but those cedar boards are very handy.
Quote from: Tee on December 09, 2018, 09:37:54 AM
He offered 20-25 dollars a tree.
According to the Int 1/4 log scale a 9" dia top 16' long is 50 bdft of lumber.
If he is doing all the work of cutting, getting them out, hauling them to his place etc., then I fell his offer is reasonable for 9" diameter tops. A 12" diameter top, using the same scale, has 95 bdft of lumber therefore you would be getting roughly half as much revenue for that tree.
This means that as the small end diameter increases the offer would be less on a per bdft basis.
Gerald
One thing to consider in this example is the location the trees are growing. From the additional information it sounds like these are, or were, field edge trees, which means a couple things when it comes to cedar. Odds of old metal in them goes up significantly, and they are going to have a lot more and larger knots, ant pockets, etc, so that impacts the value of them as a commodity. In my opinion that is a reasonable deal you have been offered. Maybe he could offer you some side lumber in the event some of the trees are significantly larger, then everybody wins.
I assume that we are speaking of ERC?
With ERC, every tree/log, even with a 10" top, will not make a wain free 6" X 6" X 16' beam/timber. So what happens to those trees that are felled that did not make the grade?
A 16' ERC 6x6 barn post... It is very decay resistant, which is good but it is a weaker wood that doesn't grow defect free. I think I'd be leaving that 10" pole relatively intact and just skimming some flats.
I sure am grateful for our cedar here in the PNW after reading this thread! Our WRC goes for 1000-1500 a thousand! With 3-4 diameter logs being normal!
I just brought in two 30 footers that were 32" and 36" on the small ends!
How good a neighbor is he? Does he have equipment or services you will need in the future? Do you have a use or market for the side lumber?
I might just give them to a real good neighbor or I might tell him he could have them for the side lumber returned to me.
Some things in life are worth way more than cash money in hand right now.
Quote from: WV Sawmiller on December 09, 2018, 11:22:33 PM
How good a neighbor is he? Does he have equipment or services you will need in the future? Do you have a use or market for the side lumber?
I might just give them to a real good neighbor or I might tell him he could have them for the side lumber returned to me.
Some things in life are worth way more than cash money in hand right now.
^^ This
Like are the trees of any real value to you as they stand? Would someone else come in and harvest them for more $$? Or do you want to harvest them yourself and sell the product, in which case you can figure out what they are worth to you.
But because we aren't talking any huge value, you can either take his offer (which isn't insultingly low), and comes to ~$750? Or do a deal where you gives you back some product. Give him a few more trees in case there are some rejects for poles, that would still make good fence posts or useful boards.
Barter deals can work out good as long as you are both happy with the outcome.
A perfectly round cylinder 8.6" diameter will saw a wane free 6x6. Euclid says so. A 9" will saw a wane free post in most cases. A little bark on a corner here and there and a little ingrown if there are big knots is not going to cause a problem in compression strength. Cedar does very well as posts for building and the base will be all red so will last 50 years or more in the ground. Cedar is not strong in bending as it is a brittle wood and snaps when put in a bend.
If you have a tree 9" at small end at 16', you should have at least a 7" at 25' and 5" at 33'. So a tree big enough to get your 6x6 will have somewhere between 75 and 81 board feet on cedar scale. If 10" at 16', then will have about 103' in it. This is for the entire tree. Side lumber may be good one face as side lumber usually has unsound knots and ingrown bark. So would be good for paneling, but not high value for boxes and cedar chests. The price seems fair if he will accept the risk that some trees may be bad with heart rot. If you are taking the risk, up to you to decide what is fair.
Have any trees been cut to check for quality?
What will be left in the woods? Would it damage the value if you had a cedar sale to get rid of the rest of the cedar? What is your management plan for the woods? Figure out the big picture and see if this fits the long term plan.
QuoteA little bark on a corner here and there and a little ingrown if there are big knots is not going to cause a problem in compression strength. Cedar does very well as posts for building and the base will be all red so will last 50 years or more in the ground. Cedar is not strong in bending as it is a brittle wood and snaps when put in a bend.
This is outside the original question but when do we stay on topic, and I started it :D.
We're going from Euclid to Euler. As a column gets taller and more slender buckling rather than compression becomes the controlling factor. Although in pure compression ERC is good for about 250 psi, when the post is a 6x6x16' tall at its stiffness it loses 50% of its load carrying capacity due to buckling. If it is sided and the wind is blowing that is called a combined load or a beam-column, there is the compression load from above and a bending load from the side, the big knot really comes into play. The rule of thumb for just thinking about compression is 1" of thickness for every foot of height, Euler stays home, after that he plays an ever increasing role as the column becomes more slender. I did not just say to make the posts 16x16, simply that the 6x6 posts are half as strong as one might initially think, if nice ones. At 8x8x16', at this stiffness, slenderness eats up 25% of compression capacity.
Is a true 2x6x12 cedar stronger than a store bought pine 2x6x12 which is actually a 1 1\2 x 5 1\2 x12?
ERC doesn't have published design values, stiffness is similar to northern white, which is published. MOR of ERC is a good bit higher than NWC in the range of eastern white pine. The SYPines have about half again higher MOR's which relates to bending strength.
So doing some comparisons based on dead reckoning for ERC... this isn't gospel by any stretch
My guesstimate is your #2 full 2x6x12 cedar is overstressed at about 400 lbs and deflects about 5/8" as say a joist or rafter uniformly loaded.
A SYP #2 nominal 2x6x12 is good to a little over 500 lbs with around 9/16" deflection.
Just out of curiosity, full dimension southern pine - 800 pounds at 9/16" deflection
The grade is another thing to watch there, it is harder to get as high a grade in cedar. As a post I like cedar, it is very rot resistant, keep the dimension up if it gets tall. As 2x framing its a real push, there are better alternatives. As siding, paneling, etc, again it shines.
That's a lot of info and things to consider. I really do appreciate all of the time spent on replies.
Would I even want to start a thread somewhere about one of the barns on the property that's supposed to be wormy chestnut?
:D yeah I went into full navel stare there. That is funny though, we worked on a chestnut barn this past summer. There are times where all I can say is "well I helped the old barn"
I for one appreciated all the cedar info. I have lots of it and use it for outbuildings.
Quote from: LeeB on December 11, 2018, 10:25:12 PM
I for one appreciated all the cedar info. I have lots of it and use it for outbuildings.
Me to. I have lots of cedar on the farm . Nice size and would make quite a bit of lumber. I was wanting to use it to build some buildings on the farm. I am wanting to make a lean to off the back of my 24 x 24 shop. I was planning on milling 6x6 cedar for the poles and milling 2x6x12 for the rafters.
@DonP,
Can you translate this to info we can understand?
Compression tests parallel to the grain indicate that maximum crushing strength is about 3,570 pounds per square inch (p.s.i.) for green redcedar wood and 6,020 p.s.i. for wood at a standard 12-percent content. Compression perpendicular to grain or fiber stress at proportional limit is 700 p.s.i. for green wood and 920 p.s.i. for wood at 12-percent moisture content. Shear strength parallel to the grain is about 1,010 p.s.i. for green wood. The modulus of rupture of green wood is 7,000 p.s.i. and 8,800 p.s.i. for wood at the standard moisture content. The coefficients for radial and tangential dimensional changes due to shrinkage or swelling are 0.00106 and 0.00162 per 1 percent change in moisture content, respectively. These coefficients are valid for moisture contents of 6 to 14 percent.
Those numbers look like they came from the wood database which came from the US Forest Products Lab. I was taking those same numbers from the USFPL's Wood Handbook, mostly looking at modulus of rupture, modulus of elasticity, specific gravity and shear and comparing them to other woods that I do have design strengths of for construction. The wood handbook and NDS supplement are both open on the desk. Where the numbers you are looking at are the average ultimates for small, clear, straight grained pieces, they caution never to use them for construction, the strength numbers I use when I'm building are trying to account for defects and also have a factor of safety of 2:1, with the exception of stiffness (modulus of elasticity) which is at or close to the test numbers. ERC pretty much falls in the range of northern white cedar and eastern white pine.
Using those species I guesstimated the design values of ERC for construction. That is wrong, just so you know. For allowable bending strength, in construction I work with "allowables", how much stress I'm allowed to put on a piece of wood. These should always be in the "elastic" range of the material, remove the load and the wood returns to its original shape or deflection. Materials usually then go into the plastic range, deformation without failure think of steel bending but not returning, wood's plastic range is much narrower than steel! and then ultimate strength where load applied causes deformation with no more ability to take load. You can read more about the tests for the wood handbook numbers in chapter 4 of the handbook for more background.
Modulus of rupture is used to develop what I use as allowable Fb (pronounced f of b) extreme fiber stress in bending. They are using the word extreme differently than you're thinking there. The extreme fiber is the outermost strap of wood, usually the bottom strap of a beam. Bend a popsicle stick till it starts to fail. Look at the bottom, extreme fiber, notice it tearing or splintering. I want to be at no more than half of that load, not in a small clear straight grained sample but in a stick with some range of defects, there is my allowable Fb. I also just introduced grading into the mix there. My best construction lumber, straight grained, maybe a pin knot or two is select structural, then #1 which might have defects in the central body not the extreme fiber areas of up to 1/4 of the cross section, more slope of grain 1:10 and then #2 grade defects up to 1/3 section, much reduced edge restrictions, SOG 1:8. Aside here, what causes most breaks is slope of grain, the grain wraps around knots, can twist around a spiral growing tree, follow the buttresses of something like redcedar, and then we saw straight lines through that wandering grain. The wood snaps where that grain is short across the board, say it wraps a knot and I saw close, the strap of wood has just been really compromised. I build in log too, the allowable bending strength in a full log is a good bit higher because we leave most of that wandering grain intact to form a strong if not perfectly straight strap. Remember that for your rafters Kwill, skim the tops flat and leave the rest alone if you can.
Trying to round the turn here :D
MOR for northern white is 6500, EWP 8600, ERC 8800 psi
Fb for #2 NWC 550, EWP 575... I'm going to be conservative and call it 550 psi for ERC, hold that thought.
To give you range, in SS NWC Fb=775, EWP 1250psi. #2 SYP is 1250, Dense SS 2700. Construction is conservative but don't be fooled into using those MOR numbers, I've seen full sized graded wood in the test labs break below the allowables, be conservative. So, that was MOR to allowable Fb, bending is the first and most important safety check. Longer, normally loaded wood is most apt to fail in bending, Kwill's 2x6x12' rafters, we'll get to that.
Horizontal shear. Bend a magazine or phone book, watch the pages slip past one another to allow the bend, that is horizontal shear, the lengthwise fibers shearing and slipping past one another in bending. Rare, this is a shorter, stouter, very heavily loaded beam, church belltower support beams are a classic example, heavy factory, timber construction but not always. Wood splits and checks, this number also needs to be conservative, if a check runs because of bending induced shear we have a real problem
Wood handbook shear parallel to grain NWC 6500, EWP 8600, ERC 8800 psi
NDS allowable Fv (f of v) NWC 120, EWP 135, I'd use 135 psi for ERC (Red maple, 220) This value stays the same no matter the grade.
In a bending member, a beam or joist or rafter, deflection very often controls, is the limiting factor. We don't want too bouncy a floor or sagging rafters popping drywall seams. This isn't a safety issue it is a serviceability problem. Modulus of elasticity is the design value plugged into the equation to figure deflection. So E is used closer to the wood handbook number. Until... you get to a column. That was stiffness, E, I was talking about for buckling in a column above. A stiffer post is less apt to buckle than a noodly one so the buckling strength loss is less and later in a stiffer species than in one less stiff. Hold the popsicle stick upright between thumb and forefinger and squeeze, it won't fail in compression, it'll pop out to the side and fail by buckling, there's the stiffness/slenderness problem that Euler discovered.
Now perform the same test but while squeezing the popsicle stick also push in on it from the side. It buckles much quicker now, the beam-column, compression with bending, a post holding up the roof in the wind.
USFPL E NWC-.80, EWP 1.24, ERC .88
NDS #2 NWC .7, EWP 1.1, ERC I used .7
NDS SS NWC .8, EWP 1.2 (so for highest grade pretty much right on the wood handbook numbers, I want true deflection numbers)
There is a relationship between E and Fb, that is how mechanical grading machines work, if you see lower E's watch your Fb's and be more conservative with them. Remember above when I dinged ERC Fb harder than EWP even though it had a little higher MOR, there we go. Better quit there for now I can hear the yawns from here :D
But back to Kwill's rafters 2x6x12', allowable max load from the previous post of about 400 lbs.
Let's say they are on 2' centers and spanning 10' horizontally, so supporting 20 square feet of roof each. Looking in the codebook most of MO is 20 psf snow, the live load, we usually use 10 psf for dead load, the weight of the materials, so total design load of 30 pounds per square foot and 20 square feet of roof on the rafter... 600 lbs, the span is 10' rather than 12 in my scenario, still fails in bending. A 2x8 is good to around 750 by my guesstimates from all that. but I'd still find an alternative species for those horizontal members if at all possible, in the end my gut just says ERC is too brittle for joists and rafters.
We had snow here over the weekend, first big one on the canopy over the pumps at the local gas station. So Andy T was under there morning after the snow fueling up his tractor and he hears something not good atall overhead. Thankfully it was him and not one of our older ladies, he ran and it collapsed. I had weighed that snow, it was half of our design snow load weight, somebody blew it bigtime. Happily the failure was not completely brittle, it was ductile enough to groan and give some warning of impending collapse. One engineering professor said you never want a brittle failure, a building should howl and visibly distort, giving warning before failing. 'nuff for now, sorry for going so longwinded there.
OK then, you lost me a little on some of it but not too bad. I found some more numbers from a 1930 USFS publication but could make no sense at all of them. Like I said, I have lots of cedar and use it for barns and outbuildings but only for posts, studs, perlins, and sheathing. I use other woods for joists and rafters.
Poplar is my choice for rafters and any horizontal structural wood. Poplar is plentiful here and I get 3 times the money out of cedar.
Thanks Don and Lee for getting into the nuts and bolts of cedar.
We do sell a good bit of cedar for pergolas and some customers want to know how much weight they can put on horizontal 2x8.
I didn't get into the nuts and bolts of anything. :D All I did was through a pile of them on the table and let Don sort it out.
Makes for a long day and all kinds of pontificating time when the wife wakes up at 2 am :D
Of our local trees I do prefer tulip poplar for most dimensional framing wood. Whenever this white stuff clears up we have a house of it to saw.
Donp is those numbers for a 2inch board not a 1 1\2? I can go 16 on center if I need to
What I wrote above really was just sorting nuts and bolts. The beam calc I was plugging those inputs into is here;
http://forestryforum.com/members/donp/beamclcNDS2.htm (http://forestryforum.com/members/donp/beamclcNDS2.htm)
That was for full 2"x6", but I made some assumptions, the design value guesstimate, 10' horizontal span, and look at the snow load map, fig 301.2(5) here;
https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/VRC2012/chapter-3-building-planning (https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/VRC2012/chapter-3-building-planning)
We're getting into the weeds. The math isn't going to hold this up, the rafters are. I think it might work better here to proof load your rafters. Usually that is by loading the member to 2x design load. Figure your tributary loaded area as above but for 16" centers, so 1.33'x whatever the clear horizontal span is. Multiply that by the live and dead loads from above, I came up with 30 psf, really I wouldn't go lower. Now you have a load per rafter.
Mock up something to hold the rafter as it will be. You can either mark it at something like 1' increments and distribute the double load evenly spaced along the span OR hang just the actual load from the center point. A concentrated center point load produces twice the bending moment of an evenly spread out load. Look and listen while you are doing this. When the load is removed they should spring back to original. One way to check that is chalk a line down the length before loading and pull the line back down it after. If you are only checking several, sort out your worst as far as knots and slope of grain and test them, if the rest are better then you know they will pass. Always use more than you weigh no matter what.