Who decides which logs become lumber, and which logs are slab cut?

[Industry_Jon]

I'm doing a timber harvest this spring/summer on my 26 acre lot in central Maine, and I'm working with a forester. 

I'm looking for impartial information/advice on how decisions are made on the ground regarding possible high-end trees used for slabs. Who makes these decisions? Does the land owner get to see whether a tree went out for lumber or for slabs? Does the difference in the sale price of the slab logs make its way to the landowner? How does this all work?

Thanks in advance! 

[Jeff]

Looking forward to the responses on this one. I'll remain quiet, as I've grown too blunt over the years. Welcome to the forum, I'm sure you will get some great replies.

[Walnut Beast]

What kind of trees are they and how big are they

[Gary_C]

As far as I know there is not any slab grade for logs. In fact if you are talking about large logs, those are looked down on for a commercial sale because many mills will not accept logs over a certain size, depending on their equipment. If you are talking about unusual shapes or features in a log, those either take special handling or are trimmed out and scrapped for commercial purposes.

That's the long story. The short story is if you are having a logger do a sale, better make your wishes known about any "special" logs and be prepared to create your own added value to those logs.

[terrifictimbersllc]

I've heard of high end veneer logs but never slab logs.  Know next to nothing otherwise on your posted subject but to add that people who want "slabs" -meaning to me wide full width natural edge boards- often want "character" such as knots and some other defects and these would not contribute to higher commercial value in logs.

[Jeff]

Okay here is the blunt part.

I just bought this $26 shelf fake wood board from menards.  They just found out I used it for the mantle in the photo below and now they want another 100 bucks.



 

Slabs are subjective and a current fad. The best ones come from the worst logs and the hardest to process aka, a lot more money to create that slab for that certain person.

[donbj]

If you think there is multiples of value in slabs from certain logs you may want to process some yourself or hire it done and go into the slab business for a while

[SawyerTed]

If you are working with a consulting forester, it's his job to get the highest possible price for your timber.  You are paying him so he's working for you.

With that said, once you sell your timber it belongs to the buyer and it's hard to know how it is used.  The land owner doesn't have any say about it.  Kinda like if you sell grandma's big Buick, the new owners can restore it or put it in the demolition derby, you can't tell them how to drive it.  

Typically the timber goes to one of several mills that buy from those specific loggers.  You might have an idea how logs are cut depending upon the mill and the species of log (if you can find out where the logs went).  Otherwise it's hard to know if your trees became chips for chicken houses, framing lumber, furniture carcass lumber, flooring or cabinet grade lumber.  

There's virtually no large commercial "high end slab" market.  Live edge "slabs" are typically products of local relatively small sawmill operations.  The reason they are "high end" is they are custom products.  I see more high dollar "slabs" come from logs a commercial mill won't bother with.  Mostly they come from little operations like most of us here.

[SawyerTed]

Okay here is the blunt part.

I just bought this $26 shelf fake wood board from menards.  They just found out I used it for the mantle in the photo below and now they want another 100 bucks.

Okay, you were more succinct than I was.  But exactly right!   :D

[terrifictimbersllc]

I just bought this $26 shelf fake wood board from menards.  They just found out I used it for the mantle in the photo below and now they want another 100 bucks.

They will also give you your money back if you burn it in your fireplace.

[Walnut Beast]

Okay here is the blunt part.

I just bought this $26 shelf fake wood board from menards.  They just found out I used it for the mantle in the photo below and now they want another 100 bucks.



 

Slabs are subjective and a current fad. The best ones come from the worst logs and the hardest to process aka, a lot more money to create that slab for that certain person.

My that looks just beautiful and comfortable with the big old buck on the tv and nice fire. Eye candy on the whole wall

[KEC]

If you hired a consulting forester to work on YOUR behalf, you should be OK. The people who buy the wood do what they will with it. I bet I'm not the only one who is unsure what you mean by "slab logs." Without the forester, there are many pitfalls. A Sawmill might look at a lot and tell the owner that there is X number of thousand Board feet of logs and offer a lump sum to cut anything over 16-18" in diameter. The owner thinks "that's a lot of money."
When they cut it, the actual amount of board feet might be half-again as much. And it may have a lot of high value species that are of high grade. And the contract should spell out that they will back-blade ruts, get all the hangers on the ground, and maybe clean up the landing. Your foresters job is to help insure these things are spelled out in the contract. Good Luck !

[Southside]

In this case the Golden Rule applies. He who has the gold makes the rule about what happens to the logs.

The reality of it is that any logs with "character" are likely to bring lower revenue and possibly go as pulp or firewood in a commercial sale. 

[sumpnz]

In this case the Golden Rule applies. He who has the gold makes the rule about what happens to the logs.

The reality of it is that any logs with "character" are likely to bring lower revenue and possibly go as pulp or firewood in a commercial sale.

Yep.  The big commercial mills are all about efficiency in milling.  They're willing to accept more waste if it means more logs through the mill.  And anything that isn't within the overall diameter, taper, and non-straightness parameters that promotes maximum throughput gets rejected.  This includes crotch logs, any other "character", and anything over/under a certain diameter.  

If you get your own bandsaw mill, or know someone who does, you can save those logs to mill separately.  Then you can realize the value from such logs.  Well, after a whole lot of work, plus a year or three of keeping it stacked and covered while it dries.  Then finding someone with a kiln to finish getting them fully dry and sterilized.

[longtime lurker]

Okay here's the thing.

As a commercial sawmiller I run a mill on commercial logs. And logs - to quote a guy who's worth listening to - are straight and round. Not straight and round then it's not a log and non-commercial

High value commercial logs are also straight and round, but they're BIG straight and round.... they go for veneer.

All that "high value crotch wood" and bent and twisted stuff has limited application with a limited market. it can also be valuable but a lot of it is also just trash thats good for nothing. What you dont see in the description of fancy high end twisty stuff are the fail rates because stuff cracked warped or twisted beyond any use.... and that failure rate is part of why that stuff sells expensive.

It may be worth paying for any of that stuff that you think has a value but commercial sawmillers don't to be put aside. Then you can hire in a sawmill and turn it into lumber and sell the results and everyone is a winner. Because the truth is selling at pulp prices because its not commercial log has a cost too.

[mike_belben]

 

Who decides which logs become lumber, and which logs are slab cut?

Always the log owner.  Never the tree owner. 

[YellowHammer]

Logs roll, trees don't.  If a sawmill doesn't' saw logs, it can't make lumber.  If a sawmill can't make lumber, it can't make money, and it goes out of business.  It's a straightforward process. 

Logs are simply a commodity, and bought and sold as a commodity, based on current market prices, just like crude oil, gold, and Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice.  Once the commodity is sold, the end manufacturer decides what they will make of it to minimize waste and maximize profit.   

Everything that doesn't roll isn't a commercially sellable or sawable log, and is fluff.  Root balls, branches, crotches, burls, "unique, twisted bowed trees" aren't worth a dime to a commercial sawmill, and I don't even take them for free if someone wants to give them to me. I've got a big walnut crotch thats been on the log yard for about a year now that I got for free and I've never gotten around to sawing it.  It's short, it fat, it won't roll, and it's not worth my effort or time.  Maybe someday when I have nothing to do and won't mind wasting a lot of time, will I work on it.  

This policy also includes standing trees, they are worthless to me.  I don't care how many there are per acre, or how old they are.  I run a sawmill, it cuts logs, not standing trees.  Loggers cut trees and sell logs, thats their job, not mine.  Many sell logs to me, and I will give the landowners their names, and they can work the deal among themselves, and the landowner will see the "true" value of the standing trees.  Generally its $1,000 per acre or 50% of what I pay the logger for the logs.  Not my problem, that's between the logger and the landowner.  I buy logs, not trees.          

I get these calls quite often: "Hey, the real sawmill down the road called in a logger and harvested my property, but left all the crotches, branches, dead trees, and stuff they didn't want.  When can you come get what's left, and how much are you going to pay me for it? They must be worth lots of money for slabs and accent pieces, and I see how much you are selling the slabs, how much are you going to pay me??"  After I stop laughing, I simply say, "Don't you think if that stuff was worth money, the professional logger who works for the professional sawmill would have taken it?  Nope??  Me either...however, you can haul them to the county dump and they will only charge you $35 per ton if you really want to get rid of them."  

[firefighter ontheside]

I would assume that when you're doing a sale like that, that every last log is going to be made into boards.

[YellowHammer]

Yes, everything I pay for goes into some sellable product, lumber, boards, live edge slabs, even cookies, something.  However, live edge slabs are a money pit for me, and straight, high grade lumber pays the bills.  Slabs sell for a good price, but producing them comes at a price.  

Using walnut as an example, if I buy $10,000 or more of walnut logs every couple, few weeks, and since we air dry thick slabs for a year before we put them into the kiln, then I will have at least a year before I make my money back on slabs.  So at the rate we sell walnut slabs, I need to anticipate and saw a year ahead, and I may have well over $100K or more just invested in air drying walnut slabs, just sitting there, doing nothing.  However, I need to keep the 4/4 walnut boards flowing also, and I can cycle that from log to sellable lumber in about two months.  So when I buy walnut logs, I pay market price, no more, no less, because I won't have a targeted use for the log until I saw it.  I almost never saw a walnut log only into one cut of wood, anyway.  Each walnut log will make a few high grade live edge thick slabs, then some 8/4 high grade edged lumber and lastly some 4/4 edged lumber.  Just like a steer has different cuts, so will most high value logs.

Multiply the numbers by the more than 2 dozen species we saw and sell or resell, we are very judicious about which species we cut into live edge, and which logs or lumber we buy, and what we pay for them.  Of course, we don't saw live edge slabs from all the species, just the ones for which it makes financial sense, including a few less valuable species, such as poplar and even pine.  

[Magicman]

This reminds me of a song about "Everything that Glitters is not Gold":

Dan Seals - Everything that glitters is not gold - YouTube

[mike_belben]

Lumber is a major industrial process.  Live edge slabs are a specialty boutique one.  

Like a walmart sweatshop in the metro jersey garment district vs a 5th ave high fashion shop.

They work in the same medium, cloth, but the similarities diverge beyond that. 


If the limber industry is a whale, the bartop slab industry is a barnacle.  I dont mean that disparagingly... A barnacle can eat very well and be exceptional at what it does!   If canfor did live edge slabs then bartop slabs would be $40.   Like when walmart clones prada or hyundai clones jaguar.    

[terrifictimbersllc]

At what point do I realize that the person who asked me a question isnt listening to my answer?  :-\

[Southside]

Welcome to marriage... :D

[WV Sawmiller]

What?  Were you talking to me? :D

[firefighter ontheside]

That's one of my favorite songs @Magicman