Grade stakes, survey stakes and hubs

[NMFP]

As I am converting my business from portable sawing with a band mill to a conventional stationary circular mill, I am looking at side cut lumber uses.  I have more than enough grade lumber customers and outlets but I am looking at products I can put short boards, narrow boards and so on into.  I have been interested in grade stakes, tomato stakes, survey stakes, hubs, lath and so on.  What guidance can anyone suggest other than its a lot of work and turning pennies of profit?  I also have a few contacts that I could run stickers for depending on the quantity of lumber I produce each month.

I was thinking if I remanufactured I could buy a gang rip, up cut chop saw and stake pointer.  Looking at total investment of approximately 10k for remanufacturing equipment that could also be used later on with other adventures such as panels, mouldings, ripped blanks and so on.

Any suggestions on the grade stake business?

[dgdrls]

Look to the PA Association of Professional Land Surveyors for contacts.
Local Contractors, especially pipeline contractors for stakes, sewer flats and lath.

Consider  your wood, you want it tough enough to hammer into the ground
but not so heavy its hard to manage on site.

for short stakes and wood hubs oak works and I think Locust would also work.
Lath or taller stakes can be a lighter species such as pine

Keystone machinery for a stake pointer, looks like a well built machine
that can run good production.

If I may, What mill do you run now and what are you moving to??

DGDrls

[Ron Wenrich]

Construction uses a lot of stakes.  Those erosion control bales use stakes to keep them in place.  Landscapers use a lot, and in good lengths. 

When I was in Newark, we had a stake pointer, but never got it installed.  We also had a cut off saw, and a band resaw.  The stake pointer was a Keystone.  You can check it out on line.  They punch out stakes PDQ.  Our intention was to cut side cuts in thickness.  Then we would double end trim to length and resaw.  Then we were going to point and bundle. 

I researched prices from NJ websites, and some were over $3/bf.  Most were around $1/bf, if I recall.  If you're efficient, you can make a profit.  But, you have to get rid a lot of the mundane labor.  $10k might be too low to get the equipment needed to do all you want. 

[clww]

When we start a clearing job, as far as the grading work, silt fence is required to go up. These stakes are between 3 and 4 feet in length, placed 6 feet apart, so at least 50 for every 100 yards. That's a bunch of stakes.

[NMFP]

dgdrls:
  I am currently sawing on an LT40 SH with remote but converting my business over to stationary and rebuilding an 01 frick 3 headblock circle mill.  Yes, volume recovery isn't as fast but volume through the saw is significantly better for the application of sawing industrial blocking, timbers and so on.

I just picked up a very nice whirlwind up cut saw from a company going out of business for $500 and I am looking around for stake pointing equipment.  I might just build a machine to do specifically what I want to do as I have friends that can make the tooling and all I would need to do is build a framework of the machine.

There is a guy close that makes edger's and gang rip saws and for him to make what I want, he wants 3900 without power but that's no problem as I have numerous electric, diesel and gas options available. 

As I am looking at this remanufacturing option, The current situation is I need to get my circular mill done soon so I can start larger production.

Not to mention, low grade prices on 4/4 lumber around here are climbing so that's another option without manufacturing stakes.

[giant splinter]

NMFP
I have been making my own grade stakes, lath, hubs and story poles for years and the trick with wood stakes and hubs is to use material that will stand up to being pounded into the compacted dirt and road base without splitting or shearing. If you find the right grade of material and surface it so that its smooth enough to write on, give it a nice flat top and a decent point you will sell a bunch of them and the surveyors and engineers will always be back for more.
I found that some of the survey party chiefs like their stakes custom made for different applications,1' 2', 3', 4' lath and 4", 6", 8", 12" hubs are common
you can get a little more if you can make other lengths and widths. Off size bundles are nice when you only need a few of the long ones or an odd number of another size.
If you have clients coming to you or if you are delivering to the crews in the field always try to bring a selection of other stuff they use, more than once I was headed out to drop off a few bundles of stakes and hubs, showed up only to find the crew was out of paint or ribbon and stake chasers or marking pens, having a few of the incidentals on hand makes for happy field crews and saves the company from having to go out of their way to go out to a job site.

Just a few tips that have always worked out for me  ;D