shipping lumber

[twobears]

do you guys have any hints on shipping lumber?? i,am talking from a few short boards to full truck loads.
i figure i,de run this by you guys i might learn a few things.

trapper for life
delbert

[beenthere]

When I've shipped lumber, I took it to the local lumber yard where I strapped it on a pallet, then had a trucking co. pick it up as they had a forklift to load it. Shipped it to Everette, WA where my son picked it up at a dock, unstrapped it and hand loaded it in his pickup for the trip home. The price was reasonable, but don't recall the actual $$'s

[twobears]

thanks for the reply. i,ve helped ship log cabin logs before they want out on a 48 foot flat bed truck.we banded them in four foot wide bunchs and used a john deere farm tractor to load them.
i still have use of that tractor.i,am kinda wondering about small orders of lumber..say a couple hundred feet or so.i live right on a state highway and i,ve had a over the road truck with a 53 foot dry van on my property here  but it,s kinda tight.
theres several trucking companys that go by everyday but,,i,am wondering if they would load lumber in a dry van and how i,de do that...kinda hard to load say 12 foot long lumber in a dry van...even with a loader...any input??

  delbert

[Fla._Deadheader]

Down here, they load shipping containers, FULL, of smaller logs and lumber. 40'er's.  8) ;D ;D

[Cedarman]

We do this all the time.  Sometimes 16'.  
We make our own pallet from 2' wide to 3 1/2' wide by about 2 to 3 inches longer than the longest piece we are shipping.  We cover the lumber with thick cardboard if it is finished lumber or just cardboard the corners where the steel strap goes over if rough sawn lumber or cants.

We have a 6000# ATV type loader and a L785 skid steer with moveable forks.  I took 2 - 2" x 6" x 6' steel box beam and cut away a little on one side on one end so that they would slide over the forks.  Then we lift from the end.  We try to keep the total weight of the pallet at 2000# or less.  For the really long heavy we use one forklift to lift the side and the other to push from the end into the box trailers.  We use R&L Carriers for our shipping.  We are at 70% discount from their normal rate. We have probably shipped over 100 pallets in the last 3 or 4 years.  Some weighed as much as 3000#.

For orders weighing under 200 pounds we divide the lumber up so that no package weighs over 70# and use UPS.  Get a copy of the price book.  It takes a little studying but you can figure exactly what it will cost for shipping.

For pallets  (3 1/2 x 8 )we add $20.00 per pallet depending on size and for UPS we add about $5.00 for packaging and taking to the pickup point.

[twobears]

cedarman wrote:For orders weighing under 200 pounds we divide the lumber up so that no package weighs over 70# and use UPS.
how long is the lumber you ship by ups??

delbert

[red]

ups  has what they  call oversize package  that is just another reason to charge you more 


like you can ship a fishing pole  if you package it correctly  and they charge you more

you can ship over 70lbs to 150lbs too  but again  they will charge you

if you are only shipping once or twice a local shipping store can help

shipping weekly contact ups directly

[red]

Fed ex ground is more flexible

they bought  out  RPS

[twobears]

i,ve been wondering about FED EX.they go by here everyday with a dry van.i always thought FED EX was a letter,package,ect carrier until i ordered some pestiside chemicals in 2.5 gallon jugs and they came by FED EX.he had car tires and 55 gallon drums of something in that truck.i,ll have to check with them.

delbert

[red]

There is  FED-EX  air packages

and FED-EX   GROUND   

the  fed ex ground  used to be RPS (Roadway Package Systems)

[Cedarman]

I like my packages to be 4 1/2 feet long or less.  If longer than 6 feet or so there is an extra $5.00 charge.  I never ship anything longer than 8 1/2 feet by UPS.

[james]

for loading long lumber in a dry van just one end on the back of the floor in the van, set the other on a sawhorse , go to the sawhorse end with your loader pick it up and push it in
se it done all the time at the big lumber yards in BC iv loaded 4x4x16there and they were using clear df 2x4s for stickers (now a part of a building i made! ;D ;D ;D)
james

[Mr Mom]

     From what i was told is that FED-EX will haul haz-mat and UPS does not. Things can change so dont yell at me if i am wrong.




     Thanks Alot Mr Mom.

[jrokusek]

     From what i was told is that FED-EX will haul haz-mat and UPS does not. Things can change so dont yell at me if i am wrong.

No yelling....I'm looking at buying a keg of gunpowder and they would ship it to me (UPS) for the regular shipping fees plus a surcharge of $20.00 per package on "Hazardous Materials."  Just an FYI. 

Seems that surplus military gunpowder is getting hard to find anymore.   The US military is using most of it and there is no more excess to sell off to folks like me!   

[sawguy21]

se it done all the time at the big lumber yards in BC iv loaded 4x4x16there and they were using clear df 2x4s for stickers (now a part of a building i made! ;D ;D ;D)
james

james, yer gonna break some hearts telling these eastern guys our secrets :D :D Those df2x4x 4' stickers and 4x4 dunnage used to separate the lifts make perfectly good building material for projects like  Jeff's and are real cheap picked up off the road. ;D