Price on white oak beams?

[farmerdoug]

Ok everyone, I have a request for my first paying job on my new sawmill.

My brother's boss wants 14 white oak beams that measure 10" by 10" by 16 feet.  They are for making movable plank bridges for moving their construction equipment over soft ground.  I have access to plenty on white oaks in my Dad's woods that are more than big enough for the timbers.  I have a tractor with a skidding winch to haul them out too and a TLB to move the logs and beams around also.  The boss will pick them up so I do not need to worry about delivery either.

My question is what do you guys think is a reasonable price to charge for each beam?  I will be splitting the money 50/50 with my dad as the timber is his. 

Farmerdoug

[Ron Wenrich]

There's 133 bf in each piece.  750/Mbf would yield about $100 each.  I would think that is a ballpark figure, since you need some pretty nice logs to make that type of a timber.

I used to cut some bridge timbers that size that fetched that much.  I wouldn't charge less, unless there is a good possiblility of some repeat business

[BBK]

Mud Mats, hmmmmmm. The construction industryhas a voracious appetite for heavy timber for mats, bridging and cribbing . I saw a lot of these from 6" to 16" from the top portions of the white oak. Because of the usage top grade timber is a horrible waste. The marker here in southern Md and Virginia varies somewhat but top money for this is rarly more than $600 / mbf. The average is more like $450. Sounds cheep until you figure you made top money on the but end and the top, if sawn in boards would yeild extreemly low grade and be hard to sell anyway.

[BBTom]

I get $1/BDFT when sawing oak beams.  Be them for a barn or a mat.

[Brad_S.]

I get $.80 bdft for low grade WO and sometimes add another 5 cents for material over 12'.

[Norm]

If you can use the 2nd logs out of the white oaks to make them with I'd charge $1.00-$1.25 bd ft for them. 16' beams are hard to come by and deal with. One of my first sales for decking was full 2x12 16' at .75 bd ft. After moving them around I didn't make that mistake again.

I used to think of WO as just a pallet log until I started advertising q-sawn WO on the internet. You can almost name your price for it if you can get wide boards with lots of fleck. Most of my inquiries came from the east coast.