Log Prices?

[SwampDonkey]

Competition also must be fierce because white oak and walnut grow in a pretty large tract of land. And those in charge are very select in who gets to cut wood. In some places in that tract you are either restricted by what and where you can cut where as other areas are likely high graded or younger wood and nobody cares how it is cut. Where one fetches the bigger money here is figured wood. I've seen $2000 birdseye logs, and only 14" top at 16'. But your not going to find 70 trees on a hundred acres worth that, in good birdseye ground on crown land, possibly 10. On most woodlots here you will find one or none. An ordinary maple log with 16" top, 8' length around here is worth about $40 bucks, as veneer maybe $180 bucks if you're lucky and that's the high end. The big wood is mostly gone now so your into pulpwood. There are very few hardwood saw mills in the area at all. They exist 100% on a crown wood license not off private wood. They could care less if they ever saw a stick of wood off a woodlot.

This is exactly how corporate blueberry growers are here, they get a chunk of crownland or they don't build a blueberry plant. They are not going to be in a position where other growers effect purchase price of those berries.

[customsawyer]

How is it that so many mills are crying and some are even closing, yet others are able to pay that kind of money for tracts of timber? Most of the big mills in my area are spending big coin on more modern equipment. They are trying to automate as much as they can to minimize the need for hired help. The West Frazier mill in Dudley, GA. spent 250 million a few years back. The whole mill is in a air conditioned building. The only part outside is where they store the logs.

[Foragefarmer]

How is it that so many mills are crying and some are even closing, yet others are able to pay that kind of money for tracts of timber? Most of the big mills in my area are spending big coin on more modern equipment. They are trying to automate as much as they can to minimize the need for hired help. The West Frazier mill in Dudley, GA. spent 250 million a few years back. The whole mill is in a air conditioned building. The only part outside is where they store the logs.

Management. I knew the owner of the mill down the road from me. He died a few years ago. He and his partner couldn't stop making money. they put in a pellet mill in 2009 when the banks weren't lending with cash on hand. Secured a contract to send bagged horse bedding pellets to Dubai and paid for the mill in 180 days. It runs with 3 people. One in the control room, 1 loading logs in one end and one moving pallets out the other end. Everything else is machinery and robots. 

[SwampDonkey]

Huber in Easton, Maine have been there over 30 years by now. Have never heard they cry over money or ask for bailouts. The Irvings seem to do pretty well to on family money, no share holders other than family. Sometimes they buy defunct mills and shutter them, but they have grown the land base. In their big softwood sawmills, they installed computer graders 30 years ago. I'm sure they are adding new technology as it comes along. Also Irving helps to develop and improve the technology, they have their tentacles into everything.

[nativewolf]

Not sure we really discussed it but when AWP shut down they were the 3rd largest hardwood mill company in the USA with most of the capacity and sourcing from WV.  

RO and HM pricing really hurt them in the last 2 years.  

[ehp]

Thing is our hard maple price is almost as high as it ever was , Been averaging $6.80/ft usa money all winter long on veneer so thats pretty good . I get some butts at $8/ft which is the highest I have ever gotten, remember those logs go for a long truck ride and that drives our price down abit , as far as white oak goes when I cut a tree if its got no limbs,knots or marks its going for veneer so not uncommon to get 30 to 35 feet out of a tree of veneer so that is very good for here and price is as high as ever seen , Sawlog price is also high as ever seen for here

[ehp]

Barge told me when he gets back to making real money logging I can come down and try to see if I can cut some of his big timber . I got one 500i setup running a 36 inch bar set up so Im sure I'm good for a stump over 8 ft in diameter 

[SwampDonkey]

Think it'll cut this 14 foot dbh tree? 

[ehp]

I have seen bigger , I use to help run a sawmill out west coast , Biggest I seen was 17 ft 6 inches in diameter on the head saw , the carriage was really not built to handle that big so had to use the kickers to hold log as it went threw the head saw , Just lower a kicker as log went by the head saw then put it back up to hold the log until we got a flat spot to hold log steady

[SwampDonkey]

There's certainly big wood out there. Saw lots of 8' diameter Sitka's. Not a lot of real big cedar like this one left though. Might be some around Vancouver Is or lower Fraser. Sitka deer are hard on cedar regen. This was way north of there on Haida Gwai Islands. Still grew big tall timber up there. Old growth spruce was 225-250 feet tall around the area I cruised on.

[Log-it-up]

Wow I just looked up the footage on a 17"6' log 16 ft long 38,487 board ft that's crazy to me its hard to imagine ( I could be wrong on the calculations please correct if i am)

[ehp]

I believe that log was 60 ft long , Lots of 40 ft stuff there . Biggest thing was not much big wide boards cut , Hardly much over 2 inch by 10 inch ever cut , We only cut hardwood which was oak that was trucked in maybe 1 or 2 days a year , Mainly all softwood which went to Japan , Some cedar that went to calf. but not a lot of that either . I was head chef and bottle washer  ,  I liked the job but quite demanding as I ended up doing double shift pretty much every day to make sure both shifts had zero problems  and I was a guy that ran the planer and filer and mill wright for everything else, if something broke guess who was fixing it . Now back to wood , the softwood was high end stuff , zero junk and Japan paid huge price for it , Cut alot of 3 inch by 4 inch by 24 ft long stuff and was allowed 1 closed bark pocket of 1/16th of a inch , Zero knots or worm holes , 

[SwampDonkey]

When I was out there all the yellow cedar of good quality went to Japan, big money. Men got good money making shakes in remote areas from yellow and red cedar. Heli-lifted from woods to shore. Paid by the stacked cubic meter forget the $$/m3 now. I never saw any yellow cedar on the domestic market, all I saw was red cedar. Of course spruce and fir had domestic market. A lot of veneer wood, no limbs for several feet up. Many of the cruised stands of spruce were not cut, DNR would decide to leave them for whatever reason. Cruised lots of yellow cedar. I seen some big stuff that was sampled for growth and yield and left to lay and rot. But yellow cedar is very rot resistant. But much of the yellow cedar was not huge wood, red cedar was way bigger.

[Nealm66]

Cut some pretty big old growth yellow cedar back in the eighties. It stinks as bad as cotton wood. I thought it was going to china not Japan. Told us they used it for door trim and it had some sort of meaning to them. Same job we were cutting huge yew wood they were hauling it off in dump trucks for the bark as a cancer treatment if I remember correctly

[SwampDonkey]

If you do an internet search "yellow cedar exported to Japan" , there's article upon article about exporting yellow cedar to Japan. Search for Chinese export and not much comes up. It's similar to the sacred Hinoki False Cypress, which is highly prized by the Japanese for use in their temples.

[Nealm66]

Well, it was the eighties. This can't be right but I think I remember the yellow cedar going for $3000 per thousand. At the time our old growth fir was running around $350-400. I'm guessing that was just rumors as we never knew what actual prices were, we just cut it

[ehp]

We had another name for yellow cedar that started with p and has 2 s at the end , not very nice to smell, we cut far more hemlock and I mean pretty much our man tree . Hemlock out there is totally different than here , I find it alot closer to spruce here . As far as price you better times that by at least 3 just for the shorter stuff used to make window frames in Japan , longer stuff was higher than that . When I was out there we never shipped anything I knew of to China , Japan was the main place , some to southern western USA but not  alot , maybe a week a year or so . We shipped to Germany which everyone said was the hardest to grade lumber for but it was a fair bit easier than Japan , Japan was quite tough but they paid for that good stuff . Did ship bit to Britain and it was also quite strict but samething , strict rules but paid very well for it . The odd time we shipped just regular lumber to the USA but the problem was we were so use to very strict guide lines it was very hard to drop down to what the USA buyer would take in their orders 

[ehp]

Well Barge told me I'm to small minded in my thinking so not really sure why but I bid on a county bush thats to the east of me abit and they phoned this morning telling me they wanted my money but I cannot cut unless dry and after Sep 1st . Not a big huge bush but just over 155 trees with a 800 ft per tree average , yes I know Barge your tigercat can skid that whole bush in one hitch but if I use my old 230A its going to be 1 tree at a time but the skid is very short 

[SwampDonkey]

BC loggers and MOF foresters where I worked called yellow cedar, yellow cypress. I thought it smelled like peeled parsnip or carrots, not all that bad at all to me.
Chamaecyparis nootkatensis when I went to college, but has been renamed to Callitropsis nootkatensis and that was renamed from Cupressus nootkatensis. They don't know what to call it. :D :D

[mudfarmer]

looks like my average price was up quite a bit this year even with worse logs, will try to remember to dig up the #s and post a comparison

[Nealm66]

Starting the pole job tomorrow. I don't believe we currently have a better market around here. Markets down a bit and the pole yards are plugged but they're honoring the po agreement. Truck can haul up to 125' logs with a 16 ton loader on it , 105,500 gross. 

[ehp]

I think I may go start a small walnut job, nothing great but it is walnut . no worry there is no $10,000 trees on this cut , I did not see many if any that will get $1,000 a tree . I'm sure there are a few and their bigger than they look once I get them to the landing but not a lot of trees and lots of smaller trees 

[SwampDonkey]

As to yellow cypress, the Caren Range, at the mouth of Clowhom River and NW of Vancouver, British Columbia is home to the oldest yellow cypress specimens in the world, with one specimen found to be 1,834 years old; some specimens may be over 3,000 years old.

[Nealm66]

That yellow cedar we cut out of Randall Washington was probably pretty old. If I'm remembering correctly the bigger ones were around 5'. I definitely remember the ground was steep and broke up and having to fall one across a deep little draw and praying it would break so I could buck it but it didn't. It was stinky and tough. Had to make a couple shorties to break it down where I could reach it.

[ehp]

Been cutting walnut for a couple days , Nothing great but it is walnut , Sent 3 loads on Thurs and price was ok, I'm happy with it . Got close to 5 more loads to go now , only got I think 15 or so to cut then I'm done