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price for planing one side

Started by alanh, October 14, 2019, 09:15:46 AM

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alanh

I have an order for 150 1x8x12`pine boards. He`s fine with the 1.00bd ft for the boards off the mill but called this morning and asked if I could plane 1 side because he decided he wants to stain them. My planer is the Dewalt 12'. I`ll do it but wondering whats fair to price it. bd ft or hourly?

petefrom bearswamp

You willbe working that little deWalt pretty hard doing 150 boards.
They arent made forthat hard of work.
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YellowHammer

I charge 25 cents per bdft per pass.  So basically if a customer wants me to bring a rough sawn or skip planed 4/4 board down to 3/4" finished 2 sides, or S2S, I charge them 50 cents per bdft.

Are your boards dry?  Planer's do not like wet wood, unless it is designed for it.  The chips don't eject, they jam things up, and the wet shavings cause instant rust, etc.  
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

Sawmill Man

Give him an rough sawn sample board to stain and see how he likes that. Lots of people stain rough sawn lumber on homes and barn siding.
"I could have sworn I went over that one with the metal detector".

alanh

these are all factors I`ve been considering, he`s already stained some and wasnt happy so he belt sanded the first ones he picked up. I know the dewalt wont be fast which is why I was unsure of an hourly rate, I do have a super powerful vacuum/blower I use so the chips shouldn`t be a problem, I`ve done quite a bit of green lumber. I didnt want to rip him off so I think I`ll use the .25 bd ft. That way if he questions it I can say that`s the going rate...... Now let`s see how many boards (at $2.00 each ) I can get thru the Dewalt per hr. 

YellowHammer

So at a modest 20 fpm, (I'm not sure what the Dewalt feed rate is, but most are between 20 and 30 fpm) and with help to consecutively feed the boards, you may be able to get it done in 90 minutes, or just round up to 2 hours.  150 boards for $300 for $150 per hour.  

This is where good money is made planing, arguably more than saw milling.  


  
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

Bandmill Bandit

I charge .25 cents a lineal foot 6 inch width and go up from there by 5 cents a lineal foot for each additional inch of width.

I have had people ask for 1 side planed but I ask them to come look at the lumber BEFORE I plane. So far I have only planed 2 orders after the customer sees the boards off the mill before planing. 
Skilled Master Sawyer. "Skilled labour don't come cheap. Cheap labour dont come skilled!
2018 F150 FX4, Husqvarna 340, 2 Logright 36 inch cant hooks and a bunch of stuff I built myself

WV Sawmiller

   I thought I had seen threads about value added services and seems like I thought some people used a rule of thumb to double the price at each step - KD, planing, T&G, etc. That may be way out in left field but you sure don't want to do other services for less profit than sawing if you can help as such actions are taking you away from your primary job.

  I did manage to sell a little lumber to a repeat customer yesterday when he asked about figure and such and I suggested we plane a board and see what it looked like. I had not sawed or sold any of it before and honestly did not know. I barely got the rough off one end on one side and they liked it and bought several pieces.

  I often offer to do such or give people a board or two as a sample for wood they are not familiar with.
Howard Green
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Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

Woodpecker52

Think Id charge him the price for a new planner you might need a new one.
Woodmizer LT-15, Ross Pony #1 planner, Ford 2600 tractor, Stihl chainsaws, Kubota rtv900 Kubota L3830F tractor

YellowHammer

Value added are they key words, there are many reasons people ask us to plane wood, as well as straight line and even joint.  The either don't have the equipment, can't use their equipment, or don't want to use their equipment.  Many has been the time where a customer asks us what it would cost to plane boards they just bought from us, and say yeah, that's a little steep, BUT, go ahead, because you can get done in a few minutes what would take all afternoon.  So to them, it's value added, and we charge for the investment in equipment and our time.  If I don't make at least as much on this secondary processing as running the mill, I'm losing money, and that's not a good business decision.  
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

Bandmill Bandit

I follow pricing both wholesale and retail from a local well known and widely used local finishing store that has around 20 outlets.  They are very well liked for their overall product quality and service. 

I do sell to them on occasion at wholesale to a couple of the local stores and use their price lists to set my prices. 

What that means is my prices are at the top end of the scale locally But so is my quality and I do my best to deliver a quality equal to or better.  

And I DON'T negotiate! I will do quantity discounts at the same rates and levels the store does. 

I have a friend that has the Logosol 360 planer/moulder and his rates start at 50 cents a lineal foot and go up from there. if you want his service you will be about 3 weeks to a month out till he can fit you in and he runs the planer 12 hours a day, mostly on flooring.      
Skilled Master Sawyer. "Skilled labour don't come cheap. Cheap labour dont come skilled!
2018 F150 FX4, Husqvarna 340, 2 Logright 36 inch cant hooks and a bunch of stuff I built myself

JoshNZ

If you're just surfacing the boards and not planing any meat off I'd say the little planer will be up for it. Keep feeling the motor every now and then it might need a break. I cooked the field winding on my DeWalt table saw a while back, cheap enough to replace but uneccesary =/

WDH

I charge 50 cents a BF to plane to finished dimension.  However, sometimes that takes more than two passes on my planer. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

Southside

It's all about the throughput.  In 2.5 hours this evening two of us took 600 sq ft of rough sawn, edged, KD pine and made it into S4S, complete with a back relief, flooring, 1500 ish linear feet, that step is where the largest percentage of the profit per unit is made in the process.  If I had another man it would have been done in 1.5 hours or less.    
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customsawyer

I recently changed my pricing. I was at 50 cents per bf. I'm now at 25 cents per bf per pass on the big slabs or 50 cents per bf. on the 1" boards. Keep in mind that on the smaller boards I can plane both faces in one pass. I can feed 2 to 5 boards at a time. So for your 150 boards it would take about 30 min. or less to do both sides but I would only plane them if they were dry.
Two LT70s, Nyle L200 kiln, 4 head Pinheiro planer, 30" double surface Cantek planer, Lucas dedicated slabber, Slabmizer, and enough rolling stock and chainsaws to keep it all running.
www.thecustomsawyer.com

alanh

Thanks, I`ll grab a stack and see how it goes, like mentioned above, if its not turning out to be a good hourly rate I`ll know for the next (or not ) time. I already had the 300. figure in my head thinking it would take three hrs tops, to me that would be whats necessary to keep me off the mill.

alanh

I went at it a little yesterday, I was by myself so I milled a couple logs, got 43 boards, 344 bd ft. I moved them into the shop to plane where the pile fell over...so much for convenience, the little Dewalt did fine, there was only maybe 5 boards that I had the raise the head to get thru and make a second pass, the chips clogged once, my shed kit on the trailer was kinda in the way of offloading so I know with some technique improvements I could speed up the planing to be more efficient. All in all the process took me 4 1/2 hrs with cleanup and charged him the  1.25 bd ft, $430. I was ok with that and told him I`ll continue to plane the rest of the order.

 

 

alanh

O.K, Im bringing this post back around because after I got the big planer hooked up and adjusted now I understand what you guys were telling me, the little Dewalt sucks for big jobs.  What a game changer, ran 40 1x8x14 thru it yesterday in no time flat.

 

Brad_bb

Alanh, Looks like you have the Dewalt 735 like I do.  I've had terrible trouble with the circuit breaker tripping.  Once it starts tripping, it gets shorter and shorter between trips, until you get frustrated enough to change it for a new one.  I'm on my third breaker.  I hate it.  I am planing Ash and walnut mostly.  A piece of oak now and then.  All for small personal stuff.  It gets to where I can only make 4-5 passes and it trips.  You haven't had it trip on you??  I realize you're planing softwood with that pine, but there a knots too that are hard...

I will be buying a "real" planer within the year.  I have it picked out (Grizzly G0544-20" 5HP).
Anything someone can design, I can sure figure out how to fix!
If I say it\\\\\\\'s going to take so long, multiply that by at least 3!

WDH

Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

alanh

Brad, the Dewalt would occasionally trip its breaker, I cant really say that was a problem, having to push the wet pine boards so hard I had to bolt it down to the bench and take a couple passes to get one side clean was very annoying. The Rockwell takes 2 8" wet pine boards in one pass, I had to take off the dust hood and make up a quick deflector as it throws an impressive amount of shavings

OffGrid973

Brad is that a spiral head cutter with easily replaceable bits?  I was on the fence with the one that can handle 24" slabs but never pulled the trigger.  Let me know how it works out.

https://www.grizzly.com/products/Grizzly-20-5-HP-Planer-w-Spiral-Cutterhead/G0454Z?iparcelcountry=US&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt5jj19rc5wIVx5-zCh2AXANNEAQYBCABEgLOu_D_BwE
Your Fellow Woodworker,
- Off Grid

WDH

No.  That is the light duty shop planer.  The Industrial grade is the GO544.  You can get it with the 96 indexable carbide inserts.  I would not buy a machine with out those inserts. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

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