Giving away "waste" when custom sawing?

[alan gage]

I don't do a lot of custom sawing but a few days ago a guy dropped off 5 cedar utility poles he wanted turned into 1x material. They were very old and very cracked. It was a lot of work getting as much good material out of them as I could and there was a lot of waste. And since he didn't want any narrow material there was about a 4x12" piece of waste in the center of each pole that contained the one big crack extending from the outside down to the pith (anything other than narrow boards, which he didn't want, would have been ruined by the crack).

I realized there were a few ways to handle these waste pieces. Since the customer only requested wide 1x material I could throw them in the scrap pile with the rest of the cutoffs and dump them. Then I could retrieve them later, if I so desired, and trim them up and utilize or sell what I could.

Or I could tell the customer he could take them if he wanted at no charge. If he didn't want them then I had free reign to do whatever I wanted with them.

Or I could tell the customer if he wanted to take them it would be $xx.xx (my standard sawing rate).

On the one hand they're his logs (poles) and maybe he should be able take any waste for free if he wants.

On the other hand I went to a lot of extra work salvaging what I could from those junky poles and those "waste" sections all equaled wood I wasn't being paid to saw even though I still went through the effort (and blades) to take the best stuff from around it. If the customer would have said "I want all 1x material but leave me a mantel sized beam from every pole I would have had no problem charging for it and that would have equaled a good deal more income for me with no extra work.

So why should he get those pieces for free if he didn't order them? If he wants those "waste" pieces for free should I insist he takes the rest of his waste (broken pieces, edge slabs, and trimmings) as well instead of me disposing of them at no cost?

Just curious how others handle this.

Alan

[dgdrls]

I would point them out to him, as separated from the balance of the waste which I would also point out to him.
Explain the work you did and leave it to him to decide if he wants them or not.

Not worth a customer becoming sore because he thought you were taking advantage of him
for 5 boards which came from his logs/poles.  Question, you mention 4X12"  so 4'x12"x?

FWIW, what do you do with your waste?

D

[stavebuyer]

I think the waste belongs to the log owner if he wishes to gather it up. If that waste contains anything you can measure as a board then the customers owes you for sawing it.

[alan gage]

Question, you mention 4X12"  so 4'x12"x?

FWIW, what do you do with your waste?

D

4"x12"x8'
Waste gets piled up until it's a dangerous mountain and then hauled to the local tree dump a few blocks away. Or until someone takes it for firewood.
Alan

[Tom the Sawyer]

When milling their logs here at my place, they are welcome to take their scrap or leave it.  If they leave it, it goes on the slab rack, when the rack is full it is strapped and the bundles are stacked to be sold for burning material (wood stoves, bon fires, etc.).  Due to EAB, ash scrap goes directly to the burn pile, I don't always know where the bundles may end up.  

In some cases, there is useable material that they throw on the slab rack.  I have wood turners and crafters that come by to scavenge the scrap pile (off-limits after it is banded), I have even pulled stuff that appeared to have a use.  About half of my clients will take their scrap, but almost always if we are cutting hickory or cherry (smoker wood).  Very few want the sawdust, but there are some (eastern red cedar for crafts, white oak for mushroom propagation) that will scoop it up.

[moodnacreek]

There is one guy I custom saw locust for by the board foot. I get paid for the volume of sound lumber [I decide] that he takes. This can and has got a little ugly when the logs are bad inside. I steal the half good stuff he can't use. He knows this. I consider it the same as the slabs because I handled it. It really , the half bad stuff, make me no money. The trick here is to only have the best logs to saw.

[Southside]

I charge custom stuff by the hour or the BF, measured in the log.  I do deduct for hollows and other obvious issues same as if I was buying or selling the log, this way I get paid for the work I do and the customer does not pay for air.  Slabs go into the waste bundle and any salvageable lumber is placed into the customers pile.  I explain to them why they may have a short or narrow piece as being salvaged and since they were paying for it anyway they appreciate the effort.  

[PAmizerman]

I do all sawing by the hour. This way they get what they get. I used to do it by the board foot. Then I would get " you could have got an extra board out of that slab" 
Meanwhile it would have been 4" wide and 3 ft long and I had to go through 7 ft of rock filled bark for it. 

If the customer wants the slabs I charge them a small fee because i have to take extra time to save them. I have to take extra time to load them. And more often than not they have to make a special trip back for them and I have to stop what I'm doing to load them. My yard is very small so they really just get in my way.

I'm fortunate enough to be in the position now that I don't need to custom saw customer logs. I do it more as a courtesy.
Are there times I could make more money if I did it by the foot instead of hourly? Of course. But this way I Know I'm covering my operating costs and people find out real quick what is actually worth sawing.

[longtime lurker]

All commercial recovery returned to customer... if they don't want it I deduct it from their bill at log value.

They want the waste they can have that too but once it goes down the chute it's mine for salvage of firewood or chip 

Rather like Vegas, the house always wins. 

[kelLOGg]

I finished a 4700 bd ft pine job and asked the customer if he could use boards from the slabs shorter or narrower than those on the cut list. He said "no" so I have a nice pile of 1 x 1s (for stickers) up to 1 x 5s for a variety of small projects.

[alan gage]

Thanks for all the responses. Some good advice and ideas. While I was doing this job and thinking about this problem I could certainly see both sides of it. In the end I decided to show the customer what was left of his logs and told him he could take them or leave them. He loved the way the cracked 4x12" beams looked. He excitedly took them all saying they'd make a great porch swing, benches, etc. He also took a couple pieces out of the slab pile that I'd deemed too poor based on what he'd wanted sawed and said his wife could make signs from them.

So I left some money on the table and in the end didn't get paid very well for this job. While it would have been easy to grumble about "getting screwed" out of my hard work I realize the blame rests on me.

Problem #1 was that I shouldn't have agreed to saw old cedar poles at the same rate I saw good logs. They were harder on bands, there was a lot of waste, and a lot of extra time trying to avoid dirt/gravel filled cracks.

Problem #2 was not offering the customer something else from his logs other than what he requested. I told him up front that there would be a large piece of waste that I wouldn't be able to saw because of the large cracks. Instead I should have said something like "You won't get much good 1x lumber as we near the center, would you like me to turn the remainder into a (insert size options) post/beam? His answer, either yes or no, would have left no debate on whether or not he was going to pay for those big "waste" pieces or if they'd be left behind. I should have also asked up front if he wanted anything other than standard 1x material for other projects (like the badly cracked ones he gladly took to make signs).

I'm learning a little bit at a time. Have another custom job for later this week and hopefully a large walnut job coming up too. I'll do a better job of communicating with the customer and make more of an effort to turn as much waste as possible into saleable product.

Alan
 

[Magicman]

That would be an hourly rate job.  I do occasionally saw customer's logs here, but everything except the sawdust leaves with them.  I don't do waste disposal.

[WV Sawmiller]

Alan,

    Every sawing job is a learning experience. I am pretty much with MM on this one. The cedar utility poles clearly sounds like an hourly rate job to me. I only saw bf rate when there is some reasonable production expected. I differ with Lynn in that I do accept the waste as I just throw it on my slab pile and give it to wood workers or sell it for a pittance to people wanting to use it for kindling or firewood. I have found and salvaged leftover customer wood for benches or such which I later sold. I always offer it to the customer and sometimes they want it, often they do not. Abandoned by-products become mine to do with as I choose. If it were costing me money to dispose of it I would change my pricing to include them paying those costs.

[alan gage]

I agree that hourly is probably the way to go on jobs like those poles. My only previous experience sawing cedar poles was for myself. In that case I was looking for big beams and the outer boards were just a bonus. Those poles were in better shape and sawing went quick with little waste. So in my head I was thinking, "poles saw pretty good" instead of looking with my eyes and seeing "these poles aren't very good for the intended final product."

I think I am learning though. Customer dropped of his walnut logs to be sawn last night and I got a look at them this morning. They're small, crooked, and show signs of rot/shake in the largest one (which isn't very large). I told him if he was looking for narrow, rustic, live edge crooked boards we could get some interesting looking stuff. That's not what he was looking for so I told him they weren't worth sawing as the price/board would be quite high with low quality compared to good logs.

He told me I could keep the waste, which in this case is the whole load.

Actually he asked if I could use them as firewood, which I can and will.

Alan

[Magicman]

 

 
A customer hauled this "very valuable" Walnut log to me for sawing.



Yup, hourly rate and "She" was happy.  "He" was following instructions.


 
I charged one hour @ $75 and she tipped me $25.

[AnthonyW]

I price the job and charge by the board-foot as the log lays on the ground, plus extra (aka damaged) blades. The only issue I run into are the hollow (rotten, ant nests, or actually hollow) non-salvageable logs. I have not run into many and when I have, it becomes sawn-boardfeet at a slightly higher price. The extra cost is due tot he extra time to measure and record each board as it is removed from the mill. I think the most number of board I have gotten from such a log is 8 before it was useless to continue. The log is then quartered to be light enough to remove from the mill.

If sawing at location, the slabs stay. Occasionally a customer asks if I know anyone to take the slabs. I have a list and let the owner and slab-taker make the arrangements. I take only my payment, mill, and tools with me.

If sawing at home, the owner gets their choice to load their own slabs or to leave them. No charge either way. If they are left, I pull out my list and they come, load, and haul them away for me.  :D It would appear that in making firewood, running the chainsaw is preferred to running the log splitter. So slabs are great, they are split first and cut to length second.  ;D 

[Walnut Beast]

 
A customer hauled this "very valuable" Walnut log to me for sawing.



Yup, hourly rate and "She" was happy.  "He" was following instructions.


 
I charged one hour @ $75 and she tipped me $25.

Looks like it was pretty nice inside 

[Magicman]

And my job was to find it.  ;D

[WV Sawmiller]

I price the job and charge by the board-foot as the log lays on the ground, plus extra (aka damaged) blades. The only issue I run into are the hollow (rotten, ant nests, or actually hollow) non-salvageable logs. I have not run into many and when I have, it becomes sawn-boardfeet at a slightly higher price. The extra cost is due tot he extra time to measure and record each board as it is removed from the mill. I think the most number of board I have gotten from such a log is 8 before it was useless to continue. The log is then quartered to be light enough to remove from the mill.

Anthony,

   I'm not following the difference here. If you scale the log before sawing and bill for that, which is not an uncommon practice, why would you want to change rates later? I understand for blade damage but a hollow log to me just means the customer gets less return for his $ and you can show him the damaged log/cant if he questions the return. Then next time he should be more diligent about the quality of log he brings you. That puts the onus for the quality and yield more on the customer and protects the sawyer.

   If the logs all turn out to be perfect and you beat the expected scale do you go back and charge the customer more? I bet not.

    I'm not that savvy and just bill by the bf of the final yield unless I tell the customer up front it will be an hourly job. Good wood I do better and the customer pays more (But he gets more). Poor wood I do worse and the customer save money.

   Only a couple of times have I ever sawed customer logs here at my home when the customer was not here helping off-bear and witness the process.

    As to slabs left at the customer site I also have made referrals and let them call friends of mine who make maple syrup and such and want and can use them. I don't make the call - I just provide the phone number and tell the customer he is free to tell the other guy I gave him the number. 

[AnthonyW]

I price the job and charge by the board-foot as the log lays on the ground, plus extra (aka damaged) blades. The only issue I run into are the hollow (rotten, ant nests, or actually hollow) non-salvageable logs. I have not run into many and when I have, it becomes sawn-boardfeet at a slightly higher price. The extra cost is due tot he extra time to measure and record each board as it is removed from the mill. I think the most number of board I have gotten from such a log is 8 before it was useless to continue. The log is then quartered to be light enough to remove from the mill.

Anthony,

  I'm not following the difference here. If you scale the log before sawing and bill for that, which is not an uncommon practice, why would you want to change rates later? I understand for blade damage but a hollow log to me just means the customer gets less return for his $ and you can show him the damaged log/cant if he questions the return. Then next time he should be more diligent about the quality of log he brings you. That puts the onus for the quality and yield more on the customer and protects the sawyer.

  If the logs all turn out to be perfect and you beat the expected scale do you go back and charge the customer more? I bet not.

   I'm not that savvy and just bill by the bf of the final yield unless I tell the customer up front it will be an hourly job. Good wood I do better and the customer pays more (But he gets more). Poor wood I do worse and the customer save money.

  Only a couple of times have I ever sawed customer logs here at my home when the customer was not here helping off-bear and witness the process.

My price for the log is actually based on how long it takes me to saw the whole log. "Whole" being the operative word. The logs that looked good on the ends but turned out to be hollow, are 4 passes to open and 4 more to get 4 boards leaving a large cant on the mill with nothing in the middle. So I quarter the cant (think plus sized 4x4s) to get to it off. All in all, I made 10 passes and the log is off. Should have been at least twice that, thus twice the time. Essentially I'm stopping half way through the log. I suppose I could charge half price, but I think switching to actual is easiest for 'normal' people to understand when the log can't produce a full yield.

I have come to realize I saw for two types of people. People that want boards because they have logs and people that got a log to make boards. The first really know nothing about woodworking and wood quality. The latter are the woodworkers and wood knowledgeable. The first bring any log. The latter only good logs. The first need pricing, terms, and jargon written in normal English. The latter can have it written in wood-worker-speak. Only the first have the hollow logs and eccentricities that need to be explained when things aren't perfect and gripe when their log turns out to be junk. The latter put their hands on the hips and say 'Huh. DANG. Would you look at that. Oh, well. NEXT!'.

I wish I sawed for more of the latter. But it doesn't seem to work that way.

I actually saw for a third, rare group. People that want something specific. Not boards, but totally custom. Such a log planters, wooden ramps for heavy machinery, or octagonal logs. Luckily those only care about what they look like off the mill and all the other characteristics and issues do even apply. For those, I come up with a dollar price and that is that. You want some ramps, 12" wide, 10" tall, 36" long (but the point cut off at 32") and the logs are supplied. Sure $xx per pair. I will let you know when they are ready. Bring a helper, those puppies weigh in around 140 pounds a piece green.

[WV Sawmiller]

  Thanks for the clarification.

I think you nailed the customer types. One has a detailed cut list prepared and says "I need this much framing of this size and this much siding. Once you get this much just saw the rest into ____".

   The other is often a pretty good guy too but he had several trees die or fall or uproot or were cut by the power company and he just doesn't want the logs to waste and he just wants stock lumber for undetermined future projects. They ask me "What would you cut out of these logs" and I say "I'd cut whatever I needed and the log would provide." Then I discuss some options and such as min and max widths, thickness (true 1" or 2" or 1-1/16 or 1-1/8" for 1X, etc) and we start sawing. I remind people there is the same amount of bf in a 1X8 and a 2X4 but once cut you are stuck with your decision.

  I was edging 8/4 flitches yesterday and the customer wanted a certain number of 2X8's. I had a nice flitch and pointed out I could get a clean edged 2X4 and a 2X6 or one 2X8. He was clear on his needs and says "Yes I may waste a little bit but in this case I need the 2X8's" so I cut what he needed.

[Magicman]

 

 
I only want 2X12's,  no side lumber.


 
Yeah, the customer is not always right but he is always the customer.  Load dat baby up!! 

[moodnacreek]

 
A customer hauled this "very valuable" Walnut log to me for sawing.



Yup, hourly rate and "She" was happy.  "He" was following instructions.


 
I charged one hour @ $75 and she tipped me $25.

If someone showed up with wood like that I will send them away. There are so many good log here waiting for the saw and no chainsaw or metal detecting to be done on them. I learned years ago if I saw up a 'log' like that I will see more of the same.

[Peter Drouin]

I do stuff by the hr for junk logs. The customer pays for all the rot in the log too When they come for the lumber I load the slabs first. Then they will always come back for the lumber. ;D
Magicman. No way that thing would get on my mill. I and I don't care how much $$$$ they have.
I don't work that way.  
So all of you cutting by the BF or hr. Don't let the customer talk you into sawing junk. In the end, the customer won't be happy and you will be not happy with the $$ on how hard you had to work tor the $$$

[Magicman]

Look$ like $$ to me.  6-8 passes for $75-$100, I will do it every day.  8)

Well, I'm talking about the Walnut "log". 

The empty ERC "log" is a joke.  Here is the link:  "empty" load in Sawmills and Milling

[WV Sawmiller]

   I'm with Lynn on this one. If all we ever sawed was clear straight logs we'd never see that special feathering and grain pattern in the crotch wood. They offer more challenges but can also offer great reward. I list my company as a sawmill "Service" and I try to provide whatever unique rough wood product the customer asks within (And sometimes not within) reason. I love to see the expression on the customer's face when I open up a special log for them.

[Walnut Beast]

 
A customer hauled this "very valuable" Walnut log to me for sawing.



Yup, hourly rate and "She" was happy.  "He" was following instructions.


 
I charged one hour @ $75 and she tipped me $25.

If someone showed up with wood like that I will send them away. There are so many good log here waiting for the saw and no chainsaw or metal detecting to be done on them. I learned years ago if I saw up a 'log' like that I will see more of the same.

Looked liked it turned out pretty good for both Magicman and the customer👍👍👍

[Peter Drouin]

When you do this for a living you don't fool with junk. Part-time guys have the time to play.
I did not know it was a joke log. I have seen you cut things on here where I would think you would cut it for some $$$
For 6 or 8 passes you sold your self short.

[Walnut Beast]

When you do this for a living you don't fool with junk. Part-time guys have the time to play.
I did not know it was a joke log. I have seen you cut things on here where I would think you would cut it for some $$$
For 6 or 8 passes you sold your self short.

That's what makes everybody unique. Everybody runs there business different. Some people will do it and some won't 😊