No demand for used mills?

[Ron Wenrich]

I talked to one of our lumber buyers this week.  He said there was a sawmill sale where a Frick automatic was sold for $500.  It included the booth.  That's pretty cheap.

We've been seeing quite a few mills go on the blocks due to high timber prices, poor management practices, and inability to sell a product.

Some areas you have a choice to either farm or log, and other areas it is mine or log.  Too much logging has eroded the better timber, due to high grading.

The inability to sell a product is directly related to the ability to produce a quality product at a reasonable cost.  The smaller logs yield higher production costs and lower quality wood.

High debt loads have also had a hand in some of the sales.  Bankers want paid, no matter what the market.

[Jeff]

A mill was auctioned 15 miles to our south last month. They could not get the starting bid of 14,000 for Canadian Morbark mill (Probably like yours Ron). It included all the 3 phase electric motors, wireing and starters, decks vertical edger, hydraulics, everything. They pieced it out for even a less. Hell, the electric was worth over 14,000.

[tmarch]

How things have changed!!!!

[ohiowoodchuck]

I know it's not the same size mill but I was at a auction a month ago. A 2017 woodland mills portable mill new in box with extra blades and track extension, went for 4000 plus 10% buyers premium. I could of bought the same thing for a 1000 less, just have to wait a few months. 

[moodnacreek]

Circle mills bring next to nothing. I see a Jackson listed for $5000 and an Edmonston asking 12500. These are small automatics. That is no money for what they can do but nobody wants todo the work.

[Corley5]

I saw a big Cleereman with a top saw sell at auction last fall for $1,500.  Complete with cab, controls, air dogs etc.  The whole package except power and a head saw.  The top saw blade was there.

[steveh2112]

i called the woodmizer dealer near me to ask about an LX25, they said 28 weeks lead time to order and i asked it there was a second hand one anywhere and she laughed at me, said impossible to find. 

[longtime lurker]

All those deals and I'm stuck over here and not allowed out. Probably just as well... It'd be a multi month expedition to dismantle a mill, clean and respray to meet quarantine requirements, and load it into containers and I be got customers screaming at me every day already. But something to think about for sure.

I talked to one of our lumber buyers this week.  He said there was a sawmill sale where a Frick automatic was sold for $500.  It included the booth.  That's pretty cheap.

We've been seeing quite a few mills go on the blocks due to high timber prices, poor management practices, and inability to sell a product.

Some areas you have a choice to either farm or log, and other areas it is mine or log.  Too much logging has eroded the better timber, due to high grading.

The inability to sell a product is directly related to the ability to produce a quality product at a reasonable cost.  The smaller logs yield higher production costs and lower quality wood.

High debt loads have also had a hand in some of the sales.  Bankers want paid, no matter what the market.

Demand here is through the roof... partly last year's bushfires playing with the logging supply down south, a little bit of labour shortages making mills run at reduced capacity on the supply side. On the demand side partly this year's floods increasing demand, partly a couple of government stimulus programs supporting new construction, and other stimulus money + people with time.on their hands doing renovation work All happening at a time of record low interest rates. All adds up to a shortfall of supply and an increase in demand but it hasn't really started to push prices yet though lead times are increasing rapidly. But our market is a lot more stable than the US one in terms of lumber price fluctuations... Doesn't ever really go up or down. *Shrug*

I think the thing with resource management and the resulting increased cost of production is a very valid point. I run a mill today on a collection of toothpicks (small) and culverts ( big pipes) that would have had a logger blacklisted from any mill in Australia 20 years ago. The state changed the grade rules to make us take more defect in logs and also help us " transition to the plantation resource of the future". 

It was a really tough learning curve and a lot of mills didn't make it... the big guys who could invest in more equipment survived ok, and little operations who could run lean and mean hung in there while the ones in the middle went under. The average recovery of a hardwood sawmill in Queensland - remembering that most framing lumber here is hardwood - is 30%. Being small and more fibre efficient I sit on about 35%... but my cost base has less economy of scale too.

The waste fire never goes out.

I started my own business up on the tail end of the great sawmill thinning and it was very tough going for a few years just learning how to mill the unmillable to stay afloat. It can be done, but often the biggest roadblock ( and the reason quite a few of the mid sized guys failed) was a failure to adapt the mental things about sawing techniques and product mixes rather than a failure to upgrade the sawline.

We're a fundamentally conservative industry... change comes slow to us. But it always seemed to me that the worst possible reason to do something was "that's how we've always done it".

World wide demand is only going to increase, and shorter harvest rotations means the average logs are going to be smaller. We have to learn to deal with that or get out. Sad but true.