Thoughts.....WDH, YELLOWHAMMER, CUSTOM SAWYER AND OTHERS

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

I've been sawing a guys logs for about a year now.
He clears right of ways. He brings in 4 - 20 foot logs. Dia. 8 - 40 inches. Every species in our area.
He's air drying right now and will kiln dry at the right time.
This is gonna be his retirement. He's late 50's and getting ready to pull the trigger on big planers etc.
He has an idea! I think it will work, do you?

His family owns big barns with concrete floors where the dairy once was.....plenty of room.
I showed him the pics I saw of Yellow Hammer's slab room, Customer Sawyers slab room and told him what I remember of WDH's.

He has an idea of doing a Laundry business set up where all slabs will be hanging after dried. These slabs will be on a beefed up track and everything will be supported per what the weight calls for.

Everything will be inventoried and when I customer wants to look at a specific species in slab form, he pushes a button and slowly the slabs come around for viewing......both sides. Every thing about that slab will be on a tag attached to each slab.

I think this is a great idea and if it comes to be i wanna be there when the button is pushed for the first time. 

What do you Slab Heads think?

[WDH]

That he is crazy . 

[GAB]

Your customer needs to use his time for more productive opportunities.
GAB

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

......I've thought it out. If it works it will be awesome!

[Brad_bb]

I wanna see the pics of the slab rooms.

[scsmith42]

Conceptually it's a great idea.  Practically though, it's not.  

He's looking at a massive amount of weight to be supported by those tracks.  I don't think that there is an affordable way to build them where they will handle the weight.

[Southside]

I want to see the video of you running away the first time that button is pushed and the big groan and creek all happen at once.  

[fishpharmer]

A slab vending machine.

[VTwoodworker]

Sounds like a really interesting idea.  All of the engineering to support the weight is possible and designing a power train to parade the slabs in some kind of circle would also be possible but would this ultimately improve the customer experience and be safe for the customer to be near.

How easy will it be to put take down the slabs and hang them back up if customers wanted to inspect them?  With dozens of hanging slabs, customers and workers will need to be protected from them falling or getting slammed by or between them as they are paraded around.

He could do a simple mock-up with an I beam and some beam trolleys to determine how to safely hang and display them and get some feedback on how customers might view them.  If the slabs are between 4 and 20' long that could be a challenge as well.

Sounds like he has space to display the slabs without the gizmosity of the slab carousel, so why not invest first in a kiln and other value added equipment such the planer?

I have never bought a slab but I have sold a few.  My experience on tha small scale is that folks don't know exactly what they want until they see it.  Do customers want the vending machine aproach or would they prefer to stick with the buffet?

[red]

The overhead hay trollies did OK, but less weight . Only one trolley on the rack.

[btulloh]

Why do it overhead?  Put the track on the floor with slab-cars.  

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Y'all just don't have a productive imagination. 
They said Columbus, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong couldn't do it either. 😂

[Savannahdan]

My wife commented that this guy must have just watched Monsters, Inc. with the doors on such a track.

[Dave Shepard]

Nobody is saying it can't be done, only that it would be impractical, like you could never sell enough labs to pay for it kind of impractical. I think slab buyers want to browse and cogitate.

[Hilltop366]

It's kind of like the space pen with all the research and engineering and crazy amounts of money that went into making a pen that will write in zero gravity, could of bought a pencil for a few cents.

p.s. Columbus failed, he was looking for India. :D

[DelawhereJoe]

Are you talking about the big carpet revolvers, years ago we had 2 at Hechingers. You just pushed a button and it rotated large rolls of carpeting and linoleum, that stuff wasn't light. I'm sure that the costs of that machine wouldn't be worth wasting on a slab selling operation, unless you were getting tons of people with more money the brains into the showroom.

[Banjo picker]

It would be nice if he can do it. It will make the price of slabs to go up, he will have to recap his expense.  Probably get 2 or 3 SGU each for them. Then everybody can go up some.  You can go to at least 2 SGU s and sell plenty.  Banjo

[samandothers]

Back in 77 or 78 I worked a summer in a warehouse for a furniture manufacturer.  We would take take furniture from a near by factory and off trucks and load onto a large chain supported carriers.  The carriers were shaped like a large 'L' where the bottom of the L was the size of a pallet which was about 9 inches off the floor.  They were every 20' apart or so.  They would carry furniture in boxes; chairs, up to triple dressers, side tables, hutches, chest of drawers etc.  This conveyor snaked it's way through the floor and up to the next floor for 4 or 5 floors loaded with furniture.  There was a group of folks on the ground level loading or unloading it to and from trucks and box cars.  We were up in the warehouse and would pull off and stack in bays or load from bays to the conveyor.  So there is a way.  

It ran fairly slow and if you were not careful could swing and catch your shins.  If you did not center the load on it or since the carriers could pivot and swing you did not get the box oriented correctly they could hang when changing floors or if something was to close in an isle way hang it on the floor.  Worked great but pretty slow when moving that much weight.  Starting and stopping would probably impact its longevity too.  As others stated with all that room I'd go without the conveyor.  But sounds like he has a dream which is cool!

[Southside]

They said Columbus, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong couldn't do it either. 😂

"They" also said one can swing from a backhoe like Tarzan and jump to the ground as a way to get off of it quickly - does not mean it is a good idea....;D

[Andries]

They said Columbus, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong couldn't do it either. 😂

"They" also said one can swing from a backhoe like Tarzan and jump to the ground as a way to get off of it quickly - does not mean it is a good idea....;D

Ooowch!
C'mon now, try to be nice.
Even goats have feelings.
:D
I'm thinking the goat is running on his own personal calendar. 
As in - this is a pretty good April Fools joke.

[YellowHammer]

Everything will be inventoried and when I customer wants to look at a specific species in slab form, he pushes a button and slowly the slabs come around for viewing......both sides. Every thing about that slab will be on a tag attached to each slab.
What do you Slab Heads think?

Two things would concern me on this.  Just thinking.

First, with his substantial capital investment and facility spaces, why wouldn't he invest in an LTWide and cut you out of his business, or worse yet, corner the market and win your business?

Second, from a marketing strategy, the idea of the movable rack with a single viewing spot seems self limiting as it would only serves one customer at a time. It's not unusual to have two, three, or more groups of customers looking at different slabs at the same time.  Is there a provision in the system for multiple customers looking at multiple slabs?

[Jim_Rogers]

There is a place in western MA that does just what you're thinking/talking about doing. They tie each slab to the vertical rack so it can't fall over on anyone with a short rope.
All slabs are standing on end in rows in 4 large buildings. When they are photographed there is a lifting strap around the slab for an over head crane to move it around, one slab at a time. They usually have someone stand next to the slab for scale of the size, when they take the picture. But each picture also shows some dimensions of the piece. They wet one spot to get a close up picture of the grain of the slab.

Jim Rogers

[Dave Shepard]

Al uses sliding barn door track,  IIRC, to move single slabs out of the building, which is probably pushing the limits on some of those slabs. 

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

....... from a marketing strategy, the idea of the movable rack with a single viewing spot seems self limiting as it would only serves one customer at a time. 

Sometimes you only need 1 customer.  ;D I'm dealing with only 1 customer now that wants it all.
This guy ( Zack ) is only in the thinking stages now.....just considering.
You could have several tracks with different slabs per track and have different customers shopping at once.
It CAN be figured out. In fact I can see other wood owners just coming to look at his system.

[21incher]

It is funny. We just had granite counters made and there were close to 2000 slabs lined up to choose from  and it only took a minute for a guy to position the crane over the slab we chose from looking at a small sample and pull it out for us to view and locate how the parts would be cut from it. I would suggest a simple 3d scan of each slab for the customer to narrow the decision down to a couple slabs on a big screen before moving stuff and then a simple bar coded pick system to bring thise slabs out for viewing in a central location. Going round and round is a lot harder then going in a straight line. Have him contact kbeitz for parts. ;D