Twisted Timbers

[Satamax]

Thanks a lot Brucer.


Soo, i might be talking gibberish biiiiiigggg time then! ;D

[ozarkgem]

Redbeard, you're right, they really are beautiful logs. Straight, too .

I buy them from a plywood veneer plant. They want the best D-Fir logs (no shake, small knots) and have the clout to demand the best from the local loggers. They aren't too concerned with sweep because all the logs will be bucked to 8'-8" for the lathe. They will pull the straightest logs out of their inventory for log home builders and small sawyers like me. They'll also mark them up 70% .

I paid $160/m³, delivered, for the logs in that photo. With a recovery for 300 BF/m³ I was paying $0.53 per BF. A few people thought I was crazy paying those prices, but I'd done my homework.

When I was sawing for the timber frame company, they were paying anywhere from $80 (junk) to $130 (pretty good) per m³. Over a one year period, their average price including delivery worked out to $112.50/m³, a lot less then what I ended up paying. However, in one year I sawed 84,000 BF for the timber framer from 400 m³ of his logs. That's a recovery of only 210 BF/m³ so they were paying $0.54 per BF, just a tad more than I was paying.

For essentially the same price I had 30% less waste to deal with. The other big plus was that virtually every timber I sawed was a #1 structural or select structural -- the best structural grades.

what does $160/m3, mean?  the 3 is throwing me.

[WDH]

cubic meter. 

[Satamax]

Ozarkgem, usualy, in most of mainland europe, wood is sold by cubic meter.

Surface of the log cut at midpoint times the length for logs;

Width x thickness x length for planks or beams.

160 delivered is a bit dear, imho. But i'm in euroland. Over here, you can say 70€ per cube for sawing pines, 90 for larch, 80 to 120 for oak.

[WDH]

In pine, a cubic meter is pretty close to a US ton (2000 pounds). 

[Brucer]

  ...160 delivered is a bit dear, imho.

I agree, but it's worth it. These are much better than sawlogs. More to the point, I made money sawing them. I have always beat my competition on quality, never on price.

[Satamax]

  ...160 delivered is a bit dear, imho.

I agree, but it's worth it. These are much better than sawlogs. More to the point, I made money sawing them. I have always beat my competition on quality, never on price.

Yep, i totaly agree. Beating the competition on price isn't rewarding mentally at all. I have a competitor, a guy i subcontracted for in the past, who does absolute crap, for cheap. To the point i wonder how he still gets jobs. I wouldn't like to be in his place. Where everybody in the valley diss him for doing crap.

Sawing wise, i hope i can do what Percy talks about in the sitka thread. Guitarmaking wood. With caviar logs. Some cabinet grade figured woods. Etc. No point in trying to beat others on volume. There's big guys less than a hundred miles from me. Which i'm not even willing to try to beat.  Stay small and human.