buy or cut??

[fuzzybear]

   Just wondering what other millers did.
   Currently I cut all my own. I cut fire killed spruce,poplar, and birch. It is cheaper for me to cut myself than to buy it. (stumpage fee is $.25 per cubic meter)

[Dave Shepard]

We salage a lot of logs from tree services and when the excavation side of things has to clear a lot for a house or septic field. Occasionally we will also fell our own trees when the boss makes a deal for some good stuff. We have a nice stand of large cherry and red oak we are going to get this winter.


Dave

[TexasTimbers]

I am at the same crossroads. For building our porch I will be using 2x8x8' nfor the joists.  It will be over 12" off the ground so Wolmanized should be fine. I can get it for 0.40 a board foot. I buy my cedar for $70 ton and sell it for $1BF, and a  $1.25 for anything over 12" wide. By the tijme I add my labor it seems cheaper for me to buy the 2x8s.

Still, if not for this rain, I would cut them myself anyway. But this rain has stopped my log supply. I can't get any loggers to bring logs. I have a few left in the yard but they are sold forward, and for our porch decking and our siding.
I am forced to buy the joists at the lumber yard the way i see it. I need nearly 100.

As a side note, the big box store is selling the Womanized 2x8x8 for around 0.63¢ a BF, and my local hardware store is going to order them for me and sell them to me for 0.40¢.

What's that tell ya.

[DR Buck]

The poll is missing an optional answer........

          I get all my logs for FREE.   Granted, most of my milling is custom sawing customer's logs at their site.   But I get so many logs offered to me I had to buy a trailer and knuckleboom loader to keep hauling them home.

[woodmills1]

I dont pay for logs either.  I tried to at first but ended up losing money.

[brdmkr]

The poll is missing an optional answer........

          I get all my logs for FREE.   

Same here.  I get them delivered from a tree removal specialist.  I cut some lumber for him from time to time.  It all works out.

[TexasTimbers]

You guys that say "I don't pay for my logs.....me either" ought to check my archives about "free" logs. Then come back next year and try to exclaim the same thing. Once you have enough people pounding on your door for lumber, your logs will never be "free" again. Not enough time in the day.
No tree removal guy could possibly have that much business.

[DR Buck]

You guys that say "I don't pay for my logs.....me either" ought to check my archives about "free" logs. Then come back next year and try to exclaim the same thing.

Been doing it for three years now, and still have a backlog to pick up.    Most of mine come from developers and builders clearing for new construction and I turn down FAR more than I go get.

[SwampDonkey]

You couldn't get a free log here. Everyone's log is like gold. Most people will turn them into firewood if they don't need the lumber especially if they know your going to profit from their log without paying for it.  :D

[TexasTimbers]

It is cheaper for me to pay $65-$70 ton for cedar than to log it myself. I enjoy logging hardwood and do it because I really love it, but it doesn't make sense economically for me to log cedarwhen I can get it so cheap. I have paid up to $80, and probably will have to continue with all this wet earth.

[IL Bull]

The poll is missing an optional answer........

          I get all my logs for FREE.   Granted, most of my milling is custom sawing customer's logs at their site. 

Me too

[Chris Burchfield]

I did complete my obligation of limbs to the road for the logs. Took a year with life's bumps. This was in swap for the pine logs. I was able to cut 90' of 6"x1"X6' and the needed three rail of 2"x4" needed for a privacy fence. I still have 10 - 12 logs laying on the ground with pine beetles in them. Now, what I hauled since, 23 oak and 23 cedar were loaded on to my trailer with a track hoe just for me to get them off the construction site. Turned the cedar into the cedar deck in my photo album. They were fell in Feb. I'm using the oak to frame my shop. Memorial day weekend, I picked up 7 yard cedars that I loaded with the logging arch that attaches to the rear of the trailer. I use a 9500 ti Warren winch. It's slow but not as clumbersom as parbuckling. I have fenders and don't like dropping the log down onto the deck of the trailer. When I retire May 08, I plan to hook up with the several tree services in Memphis for the urban/yard trees. Yea, I find metal with a $200 metal detector now, but when retired, I'll have the time and no money. I'm with the logs for free folks. 8)

[StorminN]

DR_buck,

What make of trailer is that, and may I ask how much you had to give for it? Did you get it through Bailey's? How many pounds will it carry?

Thanks,
-N.

[ARKANSAWYER]

  I have to buy mine now as I need two to three tractor trailer loads a week.  Soon will need one or two a day.

[TexasTimbers]

Arky you need to get an LT70 to keep up with that! ;D

[Haytrader]

He did, unless I had a dream and didn't see him post that here recently.

[CLL]

Arky has more toys hid at his place than Carter has liver pills. Visited with him lately and drooled all day.

[TexasTimbers]

Yep I know he has one. He bought it from the same guy I got my LT40 from, but I did miss the post I better go look.

[Dave Shepard]

kevjay, I've got a question for you. Maybe I don't really want to know, but what is a Womanized 2x8x8? Please see reply #2

;D ;D ;D


Dave

[beenthere]

Do we all get three guesses?? : ???

[TexasTimbers]

Now that right there is funny. Sometimes I drop my ells. And the answer is I don't want to know!

[DR Buck]

DR_buck,

What make of trailer is that, and may I ask how much you had to give for it? Did you get it through Bailey's? How many pounds will it carry?

Thanks,
-N.

StorminN,

Yea, the trailer was bought through Bailey's.  Capacity is 13000 lbs. It came from Remorques out of Canada.  The loader is a Farma 46 and will lift 2500 lbs at 6 ft.  900 lbs at max reach of 16 ft.    I've added a 12000 lb MileMarker hydraulic winch for parbuckling really big stuff.  I can "pull" 3000 - 4000 lbs stuff on one end at a time with the  loader alone.   Including the MileMARKER, I've got about $17k in it.

[Frickman]

Both. I buy timber, logs, lumber, you name it.

[Handy Andy]

  Wolmanized is the word they used for treated years ago.  Probably the name the company gave it when it was first patented.  Jim

[OneWithWood]

Unitl I can shed myself of the day job it is all I can do to keep up with harvesting my own property.

[TexasTimbers]

Andy, I had inadvertantly dropped an "l" somewhere and typed "womanized" and Shepard don't miss a thang so he jumped on it. :D

Off course, I never ride anyone when they make a faux pas. : ;D