Hello Sawpeople! ;D
I've been reading the forums for a couple of days and thought I'd register to ask a couple of questions. Kelvin, among others had some excellent discussions reguarding logs and business practices. I have a situation I'd like to get some feedback on:
I bought a used LT15 this fall from the sawmill exchange. No frills model with manual everything. I've set it up rather permanently on my 20 acre wooded lot. (I'll see if I can get some pictures soon.)
Max length of log I can saw is approx. 20 feet. My lot has a nice quantity of sizable Chestnut oak. Not the most desirable of the oak species but I also have some whites and reds mixed in here and there. I have a niced sized skidder and I have a trailer.
Now. . . . . . . . how do I start making money? :D I'm not doing this full time, so I'm not depending upon this to feed my family. I'd just like some side work to put a little beer money in my pocket and hopefully get the word out that I have a mill. I guess it's kind of a marketing question also.
I'm in South central PA. Maybe you guys can tell me who you sell your product too? What practices have worked for you, what didn't. Services you're developing? That kind of thing!
Thanks
Welcome to the forum WoodDean...you've come to the right place for answers. What species of tree did ya capture for your avatar? ;D
Think I would start by getting a forester...maybe a free one from the state to help with your woodlot. They could tell you which trees need to be harvested to improve the return on your stand in the future. Course I see you own a skidder so maybe you already know how to do improve the lot.
I also have a manual mill. Sawing stuff like farm lumber gets old most fast and doesn't bring in much money for the effort expended. I try to think about higher dollar specialty products. I've not sawn much chestnut oak but quarter sawn white oak is always in high demand and fetches a fair price. It's also about the easiest hardwood to sell if you keep the quality up. Needs to be kiln dried...so build a solar kiln and dry 3,000 board foot a year. Saw the low grade into survey stakes, pallet cants, or use it to make improvements on that 20 acres. Should be plenty to keep ya in beer money.
I appreciate the welcome, Larry.
Not sure of the species, but it kinda looks like hard maple.
I just googled "tree face". ???
I've read where alot of chestnut oak is sold as white oak.
Loved the kiln idea, I 've been kicking that thought around but never considered the solar option.
I think the first improvements will be a roof over the mill and a timberframed 16 x 16 garden shed.
The trees I cut down to make room for the mill and log yard should take care of these needs.teeter_totter
So, survey stakes and pallet cants . . . . . . . who do I contact about buying things like this?
Welcome WoodDean :) Where exactly are you located in south central PA ??? I could pass on some places to sell logs, lumber, or pallet cants, but don't know if they'd be close enough for you or not. The mill I occasionally sell logs to buys chestnut oak as white oak (as far as pricing goes).
Welcome.
I do well when I saw customer's logs for grade.
Cherry and Red Oak are the most common.
Most of this comes from word of mouth.
The best salesmen are the cabinet makers and crafts people
I've sold to in the past.
Give business cards to anyone that shows some interest.
Thanks Oh! 8)
I'm 45 minutes south of harrisburg off of I 81 in the thriving metrpolis of Walnut Bottom.
There ARE alot of Amish woodworkers near me, Cabinet makers, craft people. . . . . . I need to get some cards made.
But first I need to name myself. ;D
I don't sell much lumber (I tend to hoard it :D ), but as far as custom sawing the best advertisement is word of mouth. Tell anyone that's willing to listen, pass out business cards, and most importantly when you do get a job, do it well.
45 minutes south of Harrisburg is probably too far for my leads on selling logs or pallet cants, but I'll PM you about selling some lumber.
Your low grade White and Chestnut Oak would be good for fence boards. Cut them in 16' lengths, or 8' if the logs are crooked. Saw them into 1x6s and advertise in your local paper. You shouldn't have a problem selling fence boards in your area. You should be able to get at least 80 cents per board foot.
Call Lafferty Lumber in Lemoyne, PA (717 763-7725). They may buy your better grade lumber.
Lafferty Lumber (http://www.laffertylumber.com)
Welcome WoodDean! Be sure to check out our timberframing section, There are a lot of people there to answer your questions. Have you read Jack Sobon's "Timber Frame Construction" yet? It has plans and how tos for a 12'x16' garden shed, which you could modify for 16'x16'. I am cutting three frames starting this winter. I just don't know when I'll get them finished. ;D I am cutting the 12'x16' shed, a 14'x16' dutch house and a 20'x24' high post cape.
Dave
Avatar species looks like black locust to me.
There are all sorts of markets, but a lot depends on how well your lumber is made. Forrester in Shippensburg might buy some, and he might help you out. Don't overlook all those Amish. That could be a good market, if they are treated right. As mentioned, Lafferty. There is O'Shea, York Casket, and Mann & Parker in the York area. Then there are a ton of Rosenberrys in the area, some have secondary operations. Ties can be sold to Mellott. I'm not sure of the blocking market, but should be a few pallet makers there.
You're going to have to do some legwork.
When you build your shed, you might build it with the idea of being able to expand it in the future. I have never had a building yet that ended up being too big.
Great going.
First pull your horns in and evaluate what you want to accomplish with your mill. If the truth be known probably the improvment of you farm is first. That means build build and oh by the way build. The first mistake that I made was to get a few thousand feet of wood that I did not have a home for, or time to use. I lost it. With your mill you are in the small quanity but your buildings built by your sweat equity will over pay what you invested. This will also give you time to see where the most bang for you buck is.
Take care and good luck.
QuoteWhen you build your shed, you might build it with the idea of being able to expand it in the future. I have never had a building yet that ended up being too big.
I know that problem Cedarman. Just doubled the size of my shop, now it's only half as big as I need today. ;D
WoodDean,
Don't overlook your local hobby woodworkers. Find out if there are any woodworking clubs around. I've found them to be a gold mine here in Northern VA. You may get some leads from the high scholl woodshops. Also I have found fence boards to be very profitable if you can keep your cost below what the co-ops and farm supplier's sell them for. I also found that farmers prefer them a little thicker. I cut most of my white oak fence boards at 1-1/16" to 1-1/8" thick.
As far as custom sawing customer's logs, I do a lot of that on the road, with the ocassional person bringing me the logs to saw. With your 'fixed' mill, custom sawing may be a non starter unless you have a way to get customer logs to your site.
Good luck
Before I moved down here, I had visions of portable planing. Using a gas engine and trailering a Planer to do rough sawn. Now, after using the Shelix head, and info from folks here that claim wet wood will plane really well, I would really look into that feature, IF you were into portable sawing. Think about the possibilities of leaving the customer with already planed lumber, just needing to dry some before using.
That would also do away with not well sawn lumber- problems.
Thanks all . . . . . GREAT input and ideas. I didn't think anyone used that many fence boards anymore . . . . . . I'll check it out.
And I think I'll be hitting Amazon for that TFG book. . . . and yes you are right, it's never big enough. I originally started out as 10 x 10. Ya know, just a little place to get the mowers out of the garage, hang a shovel on a wall and store the chain saws.
Now there's flower pots involved, wheel barrows, rototillers, weed wackers and discussions of adding a green house on the south side for the wife . . . . . . . . . :o
dean,
I haven't read every word on the thread but I scanned them all; hope I don't repeat too much.
Based on my own experience you will not have any trouble at all finding customers. The word will get out and they will come to you. You should be ready with pricing and the ability to explain what a Board Foot it.
Before I went into boot camp, my Navy Chief dad had me memorize my general orders 3 weeks before I went in. I was the only one in my whole class who knew them verbatim. I graduated Honor Man and it was in due mainly in part because my dad had prepared me in this and other areas too.
If you will read everything you can on this forum before they start knocking on your door you will be able to avoid alot of mistakes; not all, that's part of it but you if you can avoid even one costly mistake the reading of archives will have paid big dividends. Because there is a plethora of things to know apart from the skills of sawing on the mill. In fact, your question about making money depoends more on all the "side aspects' of sawing than it does learning how to use the mill itself.
You want to make sure you have plenty of shaded areas before you get trigger hapy with the mill. If you saw a bunch of wood and have no covered areas to stack it, you will lose some wood.
You need to get your sticker situation lined out BEFORE you strart cutting wwod.
Make sure you always have plenty of spare blades (this is one of the few mistakes I did not make).
Your customers are going to have lots of questions and you could have most of them answered with a little FAQ you could print up, explaining exactly what a board foot is and showing a littl e illustration. For some reason, some people just can't get into their head what it is.
Also, know what use your species are good for and what they are not. When a lady comes onto your property and says "I heard that you sell Chestnut Oak, I want some to suprise my woodworker son for his birthday with it so he can make the cabinets in their bathroom remodel job!"
You want to be able to say "Well he sure might like that chestnut oak mam but he might like this White Oak much better for that purpose..." Most customers appreciate being helped to make a better decision.
Which brings me to another point. You need to build at least a solar kiln right now. You want to start filling it up with high quality wood as soon as possible. Forget about what kind of kiln to get, if you are on a limitred budget the solar kiln is slow yes, but by the time you can afford to get a DH or wjatever else, you could have run several loads of valuable wood through it without having ruined it.
Just sharing some of the many mistakes I have made in my own fledgling operation. Of course, I did not start out wanting to do this for a living and I still am not intending to; it's just that IT is doing it to ME! 8)
Good luck and read everything you have time to on this forum and you will be prepared to graduate with Honors!
Welcome to the board WoodDean.
Even if you just built that stuff for your self, you've made money, cause now you have the extra beer money still in your pocket that you saved from not buying store bought lumber. Building for yourself also helps make money down the line, cause your still able to saw regardless of the weather, if you have a roof over that saw. :)
It sounds like you already read this post Topic: Why do you think portable sawmilling pay is so bad compared to other equip oper? (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=22560.0). In that post DanG talks about creativity, and IMHO it is something that no small business can afford to overlook. I know very little about your local market, and very little about sawing oak. (Most of the oak out west is used for firewood), but business is business. The timber and lumber industry is a very long line of steps from a standing tree to a final product. If you are only doing one of the processing steps you need more timber, if you do all of the steps you need substantially less. I was just thinking about this a few days back, when I was looking at a piece of wood I was using. It came from a beetle killed Sugar Pine that was stuffed behind a house in a residential neighborhood. The tree may have fetched $1000 from the mill, but getting the tree out from where it was and trucking would have eaten up a big portion of that. So the property owner might have been able to get a few hundred for the tree, but he paid almost $1000 to have it taken down, as it was growing right next to the house, and other houses were very close by. I took 2 1/2 logs from this tree, and this is what I got in finished products: 3 mantels, 1 bar top, 1 counter top, two vanity tops, a few hundred feet of 1x4 baseboard for a small rental cabin I own, 4 bar stools from some of the limbs, 7 live edge slab tables, a few hundred feet of live edge baseboard, some shelves, about 1mbf of 1x lumber still stacked at my yard, some firewood, and a small square I still need to send to Jeff. ;D 8) So was it a $300 or a $15k tree ??? Once I was given to tree the choice was mine. Which one was a better deal ??? Well $300 could have been had for making a couple of phone calls, where as I probably have well over a 100 hours into this tree over an extended period. Whatever path you chose or end up on, I wish you the best of luck. :) If you are truly passionate about something, it is quite easy to make money if you try. 8)
When cutting boards two things you have to ask is where will I store them and how will I dry them. Even air dried lumber (vs. kiln) sells for a lot more then green.
Find someone that wants trailer decking 12"w x 2"t x 16L' that will want to use it green to get something out the door.
That's a good suggestion rebocardo. Trailer decking is quick money.
And WoodDean don't make the mistake of thinking that every customer is coming to you to save money either. I have only sold 2 trailer jobs but they were both doosies. Just make sure you make it clear the price does not include installation. ;)
Welcome WoodDean.Good luck with your new business.When you want to post pictures,go to the top of the page and click on to Help and than How To Post Pictures.It looks like alot,but it gets easy in time.How much lumber have you sawed so far?
Really ??!!??
Explain what a board foot is?
Hehehe . . . . I think I can handle that one. ;D
<<The timber and lumber industry is a very long line of steps from a standing tree to a final product. If you are only doing one of the processing steps you need more timber, if you do all of the steps you need substantially less.>>
Now . . . . . . . . there's a valuable piece of knowledge to think about before getting into the sawmill business. And I really think you guys are right, I need to do a kiln right now before I start falling trees in order for me to maximize my resources. Technically, other than my house mortgage, I'm not paying anything for my product to produce a good. And I know, some day that will change.
I know a local landscaper who was looking for winter work, bought a fully accesorized LT40 and a tri-axle full of logs for $1000. Mostly ash, oak and maybe a poplar or birch here and there. I quizzed him on where he was getting his logs and where he was selling but he wasn't very cooperative with info. I guess he thought I was going to provide competition. That's how I ended up here . . . . . . . . . . ;D
<<How much lumber have you sawed so far? >>
The first thing I sawed was 48 feet of 6x6 locust posts to set the mill on.
After I got it up off the ground and leveled:
550 bf of hard maple.
650 bf of chestnut oak
220 bf of cucumber
And I did some custom sawing for a local contractor that wanted several 200 year old hand hewn beams split to make a bar.
These were poplar and red pine. It took us hours to pull out all the handmade nails and I couldn't believe we didn't hit a one.
Next he wants me to split a large hemlock for the top.
Sounds to me like you are enjoying yourself - priceless 8)
Creativity for me usually comes from a customer that asks for something unrealistic. That is until you think. "How can I fill my customer's needs". What can I do to make what they want. Once you figure is out, then price it, almost always the customer will say, "That's a better price than I thought".
So be very open minded to customer requests, they don't know they shouldn't ask for certain things.
For me one example was when a customer asked for cedar saplings to make a viking fence. 9000 saplings stuffed into a container.
Become as educated as you can about trees, wood, equipment, business mangement,marketing, sales, etc. Go to lumber grading workshops, trade shows, piggie roast, seminars. This forum will supply endless hours of info. Read it once, go back later and read it again. As your knowledge improves so will your understanding. Network, study your competitors, etc. Immerse yourself into the whole business, but keep time to play.
After you tote a few of those 2x12x16 white oak green trailer boards that Rebocardo mentioned in his post, that will give you religion ( and a bad back!). You have to really like sawmilling and handling lumber because it is some of the hardest work you can do.
If you don't believe it, read CHARLIE's story (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=1342.msg16221#msg16221). :D :D 8)
Tom,
That made my day! I am still a little whooped from sawing and stacking by myself today, but I am in much better shape than Charlie was after you got through with him! I have had a number of those "Charlie days' myself. Thanks for sharing that. I have't laughed like i just did in quite a while.
Hey Tom! Don't tell WDH about the Choleoptera thread. I ain't sure he's ready for that! ::) ;D
A point I'd like to make is, this ain't a strength contest, or an exercise program. To handle large boards, such as those 2x12x16 trailer boards on any kind of scale, you gotta come up with a mechanical solution. Otherwise, you'll kill yerself before you get the mill paid for. There are a number of ways to do it. My way is to park the forklift behind the mill with the forks set at an appropriate level, and let the dragback help slide the timber onto the forks. This way I can actually cut large boards with less effort than a whole bunch of smaller ones. I do it this way because I have a good, strong dragback and a forklift. If I didn't have those, I'd have to either come up with another method, or just not cut large boards. There are a number of other ways to handle it, but you gotta know what you have available and how to use it to your best advantage. If you don't have any support equipment, simply tell the customer, "I'm sorry, but I'm not equipped to do that at the present time." Then you can go ahead and cut something that your ARE equipped to handle, and eventually use some of your profits to aquire more equipment. Operating your own sawmill is an interesting and satisfying way to make a living, but it isn't fun or satisfiying if you have to give all your profits to the Chiropractor so you can get out of bed in the morning. Know your limits, and stay within them. ;)
Great advice DanG. You definitely need a plan as many others have said in this thread. The big thick boards on the LT 15 are tough to handle since the mill is so low to the ground and everything is manual. I have been sawing on mine for 5 years and I am still learning ways to be more efficient and use less back-power.
I've been sawing for about 5 years too, WDH. I've picked up a lot of little tricks to make things easier along the way, but there is still plenty to learn. With a bandmill, you can always shove the biggies off the side, onto some forks. Can't do that with my mill, so I have to use the dragback. Different strokes for different folks, different skills for different mills. ;)
DanG,
What is this about a Choleoptera thread?
Well WDH, I figgered if the Charlie thread tickled yer funnybone all that much, ya might injure yerself if'n ya read this one.
Here's the link, though. https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=556.0
Go ahead and look into it, if yer feelin' frisky. ;D
Sorry it took so long to reply. I had to look it up to get the link, and couldn't resist reading it again, meself. :D
DanG,
That was beyond amazing grace. You won't see me asking any sweetgum questions now!!
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14578/smallLT15.JPG)
HEY!!!! I got it to work!
I wrestled with that for a long time . . . . . and I'm a computer geek by trade. :D
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14578/milloperations.JPG)
. . . . . .. and another.
Are you sure that you are not a physicist? Nice use of gravity! Just think of the pile of sawdust that you can build with that set-up! Is it hard to dog the logs?
Hey WDH! Actually it's fairly easy.
But before I had the I-beams on the retaining wall I did have a log roll off the mill and wedge itself against the wall. >:(
I'm going to be building a roof over it in the spring. ;D
That is a nice set-up with a good working height. Using the hill and retaining wall to elevate the logs in relationship to the mill allows you to have a good working height on the sawing side of the mill without having to lift the logs up on the bed. I can tell you from experience that you will need a good sawdust strategy. You will be amazed how that stuff can grow and accumulate. I used to push the sawdust down the woods access road to my mill and spread it out in a thin layer to decompose. After a while, it got incorportated into the soil. One day I was burning a little pile of scraps in the road (so the fire would not get into the leaves of the adjoining woods). I forgot about the little fire and left for a while. I came back and my road was on fire! :-\
Thanks, it's all in the engineering . . . . . . . smiley_idea
I started with a footer and sat a concrete lentl on it, built some steel box levelers with tabs to bolt the locust rails to and then the mill has it's own levelers that hit on the locust 4x4 cross ties. It'll saw some extremely accurate lumber. Every once in a while I put a stringline and level on it to check it.
For now I've just been scoop shoveling the sawdust into the skidder bucket and doing what you've been doing . . . . . . I'll keep an eye out for road fires. fire_smiley
Yep, it is bad when your fire-breaks catch on fire themselves!
My LT 15 cuts dead-on accurracy, I could not be more pleased. Since I got it home 5 years ago, I have not had to make any adjustments; have not touched it. Amazing given the amout of wood that I have sawed on it.