What is a current price per lineal foot for 4 side machining a 1x6??

[Percy]

Still workin on the molder plan but need more figures...Thks

*edit* assuming one custom plane/molds.,,,,

[longtime lurker]

Here, at production volumes, you'd be looking at $400 cubic meter for non complex stuff like DAR , T&G, VJ, shiplap etc in standard sizes. 

Complex stuff like deep architravings or cornice moulding be about20% more plus knife grinding costs if required. Custom work requiring two passes with two sets of knives gets expensive real quick.

Retail volumes, where the guy wants half a dozen boards done, id expect to pay setup costs at $100 an hour over and above that. Takes time to sharpen knives and fit them, and you can't defray that over 20 meters like you can over 2000 meters.

For those short order jobs a spindle moulder is often a cheaper option just because of the setup cost. Moulders are cheaper in dollars a meter, but only on production runs where the higher output can justify the setup.

[Percy]

Thanks. I did the math and that makes your price roughly 30 cents a lineal foot. I didn't look at the difference between the Canadian and Aussie buck. I've talked to a lot of other planer folks and it runs anywhere from 30-40 cents for the easy stuff. More for the complex   

Thanks for pointing out "production quantities"   Setup and knife costs are paramount considerations. 

[longtime lurker]

To price setup costs here ... well a wood machinist is considered a skilled tradesman, equivalent to a diesel fitter or electrician... worth more then a boilermaker/welder or builder. The big guys like Cat/Komatsu/ John Deere etc charge their fitters out at $105 an hour last time I got one in so... thats where the $100 comes from. Figure it would be the same relationship there even if the actual dollar value is different.

Aussie Dollar and Canadian Dollar are usually pretty much a 1:1 swap, give or take a couple cents either way. Similar economies, similar populations give or take a couple million, similar government services. You guys got snow and we got desert, thats about the only difference eh?

Moulders make money if you can keep them fed, in the same way a kiln does.

[Percy]

Being a greenhorn, I may not charge much for setup as it may take a while. I spoke with Doug(DGK) and he avoids small runs as they are unprofitable in his experience....The stand alone spindle shaper is a good alternate for these small orders. I have one somewheres in "The Barn Of Broken Dreams"  ;D ;D

Another question if you dont mind....say you sold a bunch of 1x6 t&g and the guy comes back for more a month later. How do you replicate width/thickness accurately as these measurements would be critical in this situation?? 

I wont be getting my machine till july so I have time to get my ducks in a row. 

In addition to snow/desert, you have snakes, and we have grizzly bears.....I'd take the bears anyday.....snakes is nightmare stuff for me... :D :D :D

[longtime lurker]

Every time you do a run you keep an offcut. And you make sure that every time you run a profile it's the same size... so all your 6x1 is the same 135x19 finsh T&G always... give or take a couple thou.
Then you set your machine to that offcut.

Now this this why I own a big old 4 sider for DAR but hire my moulding done nowadays. You either get to...

climb up in that olddirtygreasything and measure things with calipers, and loosen and tighten head bolts until your heads fit your offcut. Then run a sample, measure with calipers. Climb back into that olddirtygreasything, loosen a head off here and there and tap them over a couple thou and tighten and run a sample.... over and over until you get it all right. And hey it dont take that long... once you get familiar with your own olddirtygreasything its not so bad at all though the first few times drive you insane....
or
You put your coffee on the bench and hit the switches and pass a workpiece through. Take a sip of your coffee then measure the workpiece with calipers, plug the physical offset between the digital readout and the calipers into the offset allowance screen, have another sip of coffee while one finger pushes the button to make the numbers match. Send another workpiece through, then take a mouthfull of coffee again. Check with calipers because it dosnt hurt to be sure. Then skol your coffee and send her...

A piece of advice that was given to me long time ago... buy the $60 thousand dollar moulder that a monkey can operate, not the $6 thousand dollar moulder that needs a $60 thousand dollar a year machinist to drive it. It was good advice.

[curved-wood]

So I am one of those monkey that bought a $6000  5 heads moulder and was supposed to get a $60,000 salary ...still waiting for the salary increase. ;D ;D
I have two  4 faces planers, old machines, run on 550 volts, work well but long to set up. Great machines to  increase wood value and to recuperate low grade and shorts, like in flooring. I like to plane my own clean stuff with the right tolerance in the sawing . I keep samples that are used in the set- up.  I do repeat  the same profile. I rarely do some planing for others because my set-up was too long, too much variation in dimension of the infeed wood, runs were quite often too small, presence of gravel or metal.

[longtime lurker]

mmm, i think it maybe depends on the machine. The old one I started with was finicky with long setup times, but it did a good job and was very repeatable sizewise so long as I took the time to get it right.The biggest problem I had aside from setup time was it had a cast iron bed rather then the modern chrome moly steel one so I was forever using bed lube on her. I'd probably still have it but it was damaged when the shed fell in during a hurricane and my stop gap get it done elsewhere worked out that well I didnt need to replace it.

My best advice, seeing you've got lead time before it hits, is to saw saw saw. Get a heap of feedstock for what you expect to be your common products cut. Then, when you get an order set the machine up and run a heap more then required. Stuff like T&G, decking, wall panelling... it never hurts to have stock ready to roll out the door, and it gets you around the short run headaches. The first run I did with my moulder was just under 5000 linear meters of decking... I sent the lot wholesale and had my money back in the bank 35 days after installation.

I get people all the time... can you get this... and I'm like yeah I can get it done in 12 weeks because I have to saw/dry/dress... but I got this instead ready to roll. 50/50 split on whether they wait or take whats on the floor. I've learnt that "walnut" or "maple" or "oak" is in many cases just a synonym for "nice" and maybe a colour preference.

[wkf94025]

Decided to post my question here rather than start a new thread.  I have ~4,000 LF of KD Redwood 1x8 that I milled and dried, and now want to go S4S T&G.  A shop in my area has a ~$250,000 moulder that reportedly does this operation in one pass, at up to 24fpm.  They have three T&G knife sets, and I'm sure one of them will be fine for my stock, so no custom profiles.  What's a market rate price per LF for this moulding job?  

Thanks all.

[beenthere]

Suggest asking that shop in your area.. or are you thinking you'd rather haul it to a different shop?

[barbender]

I was going to say, whatever they say it is😁 Custom planing, the only prices that matter are other outfits in the area that do the same job.

[customsawyer]

I would be right at 40 cents per LF on a order that size. I wouldn't confirm that price until I seen your lumber. My rates are higher than most. There is multiple reasons for that. The main reason is that I don't like running others lumber as there is to many variables. The next reason for that is I don't like running others lumber. Another reason is the set up time for small runs is the same as long runs.

[Stephen1]

I took my wood for my new house down the road and paid about roughly .60 cents a linear ft. 3 different bundles of different sizes, cherry 1x8 as flooring so reliefs in the back side,  poplar 1x5 and pine 1x6, all T&G but no end matching. All of it 10-12' long and pretty straight, so no straight line ripping. They were able to run it thru. They said if I wanted more the exact same size would be a setup fee. I could have gone to a different shop but these guys are 10 mins away. The next guy is at least an 1 hr drive, so 4 trips for each bundle of wood. It was nice to just travel 10 mins. 

[wkf94025]

@Stephen1 and @customsawyer  thank you both for your guidance.  Very helpful.  I'll be curious to see whether the shop needs/wants to rip first before moulder.  Hopefully not.  Mill is a Lucas swing-arm, which I understand is better at consistent dimensions than many/most bandsaw mills.

[barbender]

I wouldn't expect the wood to process any better than bandsawn. I've worked with a fair amount of wood off of a friend's swing mill, it's not any better than bandsawn. All of that said, a lot of the reason wood needs straight lined is because of what happens as it is drying, not how it was sawn. 

[customsawyer]

Properly sawed wood is going to behave better. It can be sawed wrong no matter what mill is used. This is the reason I don't confirm any price until I can actually see the wood and put a tape on it.  My price didn't include any strait line ripping. I don't end match either.

[Don P]

I only had to strip the jack screws out of the 4 sider once at the cabinet shop to adopt the policy that all small mill stuff goes through the planer first on their dime. Bellbottom blues  :D

[WDH]

I hate dealing with wood that I did not saw or that Jake did not saw.  So, I don't. 

[Southside]

You learn to become a better sawyer when you start drying and surfacing lumber.  In the same respect you become a better log grader / bucker / buyer when you start sawing logs.  

[wkf94025]

Fantastic advice and wisdom here gents.  Maybe I should run this first batch through my own rip saw, planers and shaper for the hell of it / experience of it.  Teach me a lesson or two on sawing and drying that I'll never forget.

First quote in is about 1/3 of the price of a new Woodmizer MP360, which has me scratching my head on that possibility.  Only problem is their lead time is about a year.  

Other math this has me doing is paying my 3-man sawing team to do this the hard way with multi-passes through my ripping/planing/shaping equipment.  Outside service is equivalent to three full days of three guys.  So could 3 smart hard-working guys run ~2,700 LF per day through my process?  Guess I should factor in electricity and sawdust too, versus diesel and load/unload of using outside service.

What is end matching?

Since we sawed to ~3/4" thick, thinking I want to leave the back side rough, so I don't end up with 1/2" thick siding.
Do outside services typically pick best side for you, or is that up to me and my guys as well stack and band the bundle?

[longtime lurker]

End matching is a tongue and groove profile across the ends of the boards so they don't have to be joined on a joist.

It reduces wastage considerably, particularly as it allows for shorts to be fully utilised. Laying flooring on a subfloor as is common in the US can alleviate the necessity for that somewhat, but it's still a good practice 

[customsawyer]

If you sawed it to 3/4" then I would not run it through my equipment for you. My equipment doesn't like thin material. I normally run 1 1/8" material but can work with 1" if it is pine or popular. At 3/4" you are making things more difficult.

[barbender]

3/4" material I going to move a lot more as it dries, too. I think running that first batch through your own equipment will be quite enlightening. 

[wkf94025]

Thanks all for your input.   A couple updates:  

• I was wrong about my rough sawn thickness.  It's a full 1", post drying.  Don't know what I was looking at the other day when I thought I saw (pun intended) 3/4".
• My Redwood is fully KD, with MC well below 10% across the board ('nother pun intended).
• I ran a few test boards at a shop with a new Weinig Powermat 700, 6 cutter beast.  Gorgeous result.  Amazing machine.
• Shop owner and I struck a deal that I think is fair to both.  I'll keep that number confidential out of respect for him as he ramps up his moulding business.
• I will say that everything in the SF Bay Area is more expensive than most parts of the country, including milling/moulding costs.  I got bids from several shops, all substantially higher than numbers some of you quoted here.
• So I won't get the education of running the process through six or seven steps on my own equipment, but I'll have ~8,000 LF of gorgeous heart T&G siding shortly.
• A retail supplier in NorCal quoted $14/LF for clear heart vertical grain, and $8/LF for heart mixed grain (aka "flat sawn", I suspect).  My total cost to date is 1/Nth of either figure.

[customsawyer]

I'm glad you found someone that will run it for you. Those weinig are all over the world and put a nice finish on when done right.