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pricing question

Started by bluffman2, August 28, 2014, 04:31:40 PM

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bluffman2

I need help to make sure im figuring this right...

a 1"x6"x16' is 8 bf right?

If someone says the will cut your logs for lets just say .25 per bf, would that board cost me $2.00 ?

Am I right or totatly off the beaten path?

mesquite buckeye

Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

mesquite buckeye

And welcome to the Forum. ;D 8) 8) 8) :snowball:
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

bluffman2

Thanks for the clarification.....any idea on what it would cost to plane/mill and T&G that same board?

Jeff

You would need to dry it first. If you get it kiln dried, you would need that cost as well.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

bluffman2

Quote from: Jeff on August 28, 2014, 05:03:54 PM
You would need to dry it first. If you get it kiln dried, you would need that cost as well.

yes i forgot to add kiln drying....  im just trying to get a rough estimate of what that board would cost me to have it ready for install in a new home.

Jeff

You may typically find that the sawing is a third, the drying is another third, and the planing/moulding a third.  I'm sure that would vary widely.

You also need to consider loss from drying, ripping and moulding processes.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

bluffman2

Jeff thanks for the reply, so that board would aprrox be $6.00
When you say consider loss are you talking shrinkage? if so what kind of shrinkage would you see on that board? If you are not talking shrinkage ,please explain

Again sorry for the newbie questions....I will start using the search feature to keep my questions limited  ;D

Jeff

When you dry lumber, you can expect a % loss due to drying defects. Warping, splitting, different things. It depends on the species, how it was sawn and how it was dried.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

bluffman2

Thanks Jeff    Now trying to find someone that can do what I need  !  And I'm not having too much luck around here

beenthere

bluffman2
Have patience. Unless I'm mistaken, you have just been at it for a day or two. ;)

;D
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

bluffman2

Quote from: beenthere on August 28, 2014, 08:32:54 PM
bluffman2
Have patience. Unless I'm mistaken, you have just been at it for a day or two. ;)

;D

Lol.  Only a few days on THIS site !   Been researching for months! :P

beenthere

QuoteBeen researching for months!

Sorry, but it wasn't obvious from your posts.

Hang tight here, and you will get very good information that will help you out with this project. I am sure about that.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

scsmith42

Hi Bluffman, I do this type of work frequently.

To answer your question, usually a good number to use for drying and processing your lumber into flooring or paneling is $1.70 - $2.00 per board foot of raw material.  Your net price per square foot will vary depending upon the quality of your lumber and the lengths required. 

Professional flooring mills that mill their own wood (or purchase lumber that is milled to their specs) will most likely come in lower than these budgetary prices.  Their costs of business are much lower due to consistent material dimensions and quality, as well as not having to spend time educating each customer that desires a custom run with their own lumber.

1000 board feet of 1-1/8" thick green 4" - 6" wide lumber will usually make around 650 square feet of finished T&G product (35% loss) in mixed lengths.  If you lumber quality is poor, then plan on 50% of loss instead of 35% as well as mixed lengths.  If you're lumber is very high quality, then losses may be 20% or so.  If short lengths (24" or so) are acceptable, then losses will be lower as well.  It all depends upon the product that you're trying to make.

To learn more about items that impact cost and yield, read on....

Wood shrinks as it dries, and also moves due to inherent stresses in the lumber as well as environmental factors (stickering and covering).  The quality of the logs as well as the quality of the miller also makes a difference in the ultimate yield of high quality material.  Usually you purchase lumber in terms of board feet, but use it in terms of square feet.

If a 16' long 4/4 x 6" board bends to the side while drying, (crook), then you have a choice of salvaging a narrow board over the entire length or shorter, but wider boards.

There are a lot of different factors that affect the ultimate yield and cost. 

To make flooring, frequently lumber is dried, then straight line ripped and ripped to width to form a blank, and then the blank is fed through a moulder.  Species that dry very straight may be able to skip the SLR process and just have the moulder remove a bit extra.  OR - boards that are used in short lengths also may skip the SLR process - both of which will net you some wider boards but at the expense of length.  Sometimes the flooring blanks have to be resized on a jointer-planer before moulding, and sometimes wide boards that are cupped have to be ripped into narrower stock in order to maximize yield.

If we're making long lengths of finished product, usually we start with a board that is 1" - 2" wider than the desired finished width.  This board is presized in thickness by a jointer planer, straight line ripped and then ripped to width to make a blank that is 3/8" - 1/2" wider than the exposed width of our finished board.  So a board milled at 8" green will dry down to 7-1/2" (or thereabouts).  If it is very straight, it will be straight line ripped down to make a 6-1/2 wide flooring blank, which then comes out of the moulder at 6" face width plus a 1/4" wide tongue. 

If we're making short lengths of product, then we do not need to remove as much material from the sides of the boards in order to have them clean up.

The higher the volume that you have to do, the lower the price per board foot.  Species makes a difference in drying time, some species such as oak take 2X - 4X longer to dry than a species such as pine.  This also affects the drying cost.  Air drying in advance of kiln drying can save costs, as long as the lumber is properly stickered and dried. 

Proper stickering, as well as having your lumber milled by a grade sawyer can make a significant difference in your ultimate yield.  In the last two weeks we processed around 12K bd ft of material into flooring.  This material had been milled, stickered and air dried by two different local sawyers. 

Sawyer A is a grade miller who milled at 1-1/8" green and air dried for several months under cover.  Most of his boards had centered piths and consistent thickness.  We yielded close to 80% for him (board footage versus net square footage). 

Sawyer B was a "yield miller" (barn wood) who milled at 1" green, and did a very poor job stacking and stickering.  Many of his boards did not have centered pith and there was a lot of crooking and cupping.  His yield was only 53%, and we had to cut a lot of his 16 foot boards down to 3' - 5' lengths in order to try to keep his yield up.  Many of his quartersawn boards would not clear up as QS shrinks more than FS during the drying process.  We also had to reduce the finished thickness down to .700 (instead of the normal .750) in order to get many of his boards to clean up.

You can reduce costs below these numbers if you will accept short lengths of finished product (24" - 36" minimum lengths).  If you desire long, straight finished boards, then the costs may be on the higher end of the scale.

On custom jobs such as yours, we charge by the board foot of rough sawn product instead of the square foot of net yielded product because it costs us just as much (if not more) to process poor quality lumber into flooring, and if the net sq. ft yield goes down due to low grade boards it is not something within our control.  We still have the costs associated with processing all of the board footage even if we end up throwing half of it away due to poor quality boards.

Depending upon where you are located, you might be able to find someone that will make the flooring for significantly less than the numbers listed above.

Hope this helps.
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

mikeb1079

good post scott, very informative   8)
that's why you must play di drum...to blow the big guys mind!
homebuilt 16hp mill
99 wm superhydraulic w/42hp kubota

bluffman2

Scott thank you for the informative post, I am on my phone and I will respond with a better post when I get back on the computer. Very very informative.  Thank you

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