Buying walnut logs

[Daren]

I think this topic belongs in this section, it is a general interest story (woodworkers, loggers, sawmill guys...). I get calls and e-mails all the time from people asking advice. This is a direct copy/paste from one I got last week. I just chopped off his name, that's all.

"A guy near here has a black walnut that was standing dead for two years. Now he's cut it down and it's laying on the ground. It's been pretty wet here the last couple of weeks, but we don't get rain like you do. He has one log 7'x21" and two logs 12'x12"(tapering to 10"), plus all the limbs down to 2" dia (I think he's counting bark in these measurements). I figure less than 426BF in the logs (and what am I going to do with 2" limbs??), ignoring waste. He wants $450 for this if I haul it. He figures standing dead for two years means it's "cured", I think it means "starting to rot". And I'm not real impressed with it laying in the dirt while it rains. I'd have to haul it to a mill, pay for milling, haul it from the mill, store it for at least a year while it drys right, haul it to my shop, finish milling it. I know you can't say exactly without seeing it, but can you tell me if $450 is roughly in the right range for this? I'm thinking I'd be better off to find someone who has plans for firewood and trade them a cord of fir for a half cord of hardwood. Anyway, since I'm not in the milling end of the business, I'd appreciate help thinking about this."

There was a follow up from him too, I will summarize. The guy had the 3 logs, 2-10" tops 12' long (which I would not drag off for free most likely) And one log 7'X21"....and all the brush to clean up/haul off. Using the calculator here the three logs come up to 180bft (Doyle). The guy was seriously considering this, the second note he was trying to convince himself (sight unseen even...it was 50 miles away  ). Paying $2.50 bft for a most likely nail invested, maybe rotten walnut in the log. Then pay to have it milled and stored. The hauling off the limbs part cracked me up too. He was scaling limbs down to 2" and justifying paying over $1bft for them. I "know" this guy sorta, he is a woodworker. Craziness like this validates those guys who think they are growing a gold mine in their yard. It drives me nuts.

I swear I did not make a word of this up (I think I forwarded it to Kevjay when I got it ?). I told him to walk away, if he was desperate for walnut and gave him more than $100 he was not doing the right thing. I was polite as always, but man I wanted to call him a big dummy. I told him I sold lower quality kiln dried walnut for $2.50 bft, and if he was lucky that was what he was thinking about paying in the log (along with hauling/sawing/debris cleanup)

[Ironwood]

We will be telling stories like this until we are pushing up walnut trees ourselves.

              Ironwood

[Dana]

We will be telling stories like this until we are pushing up walnut trees ourselves.

              Ironwood

:D :D :D :D

[woodmills1]

It really does seem to be walnut that genrates most of these kind of stories.  here are 2 of mine

A church that wants me to pay to have a 12 inch walnut taken down, then share with them any profit I make on the cut lumber

Repeated phone calls about the 30 inch 60 foot section of clear walnut.  I finally went to look at what was a 30 inch hollow tree with a 20 inch branch at 3 feet high then branching into a triple crooked tree at 6 foot high.  They didnt like my cost estimate. :D

or the beautiful oak tree..........It was beautiful......at some 5 foot across, and how much would I pay for it he asked................ :

[pappy]

Wow what a deal    :
Yup and I got some ocean front property in AZ and if youll buy that Ill throw the in some big walnut logs for free  :D  :D  :D  ;D    ;) 

Standing dead for two years huh?? he should have it milled on his lawn and ebay it as spallted,,, he'd double his money   

Don't mean to insult you sir but I'll only charge you $300 to haul it off, the mills wouldn't even take it off the truck...   :-\

[SwampDonkey]

It's just amazing. Sounds like one of those guys that figures his junk wood is priceless, but your Select Grade Cherry in the barn is way over priced.  ;D :D

[Ron Wenrich]

It seems to me that we keep on throwing out a lot of mixed messages to people who read the forum.  We have horror stories of loggers who are ripping people off by buying timber and not paying for it.  Some are about absolute theft. 

We also have numbers of posts about how much different types of woods are worth.  $5/bf for walnut, firewood at $250/cord, veneer, kiln dried, etc, etc, etc.....  There's always the thread that has people cutting perfectly good logs into firewood.  Logs that were worth some good money.

We're constantly telling people that trees are worth money, and that they should bid their   trees out.   And as soon as some neophyte comes up and tries to do it, he gets shot down.  Your trees are junk, they probably have metal in them, its rotten and a multitude of other excuses.  Its great to sit here and poke fun at someone else's ignorance. 

How should the homeowner go about getting rid of that giant specimen in their yard?   Should they just have someone come in and cut it into firewood just to save the embarrassment of trying to market a tree?  Seems like they're Danged when they do and Danged when they don't.   Suggestions?

[Daren]

  Its great to sit here and poke fun at someone else's ignorance. 

How should the homeowner go about getting rid of that giant specimen in their yard?   Should they just have someone come in and cut it into firewood just to save the embarrassment of trying to market a tree?  Seems like they're Danged when they do and Danged when they don't.   Suggestions?

That is my point. Education. Get rid of the ignorance through teaching. Maybe less fine specimens will be cut for firewood and fewer firewood logs will be marketed like they are made of gold because someone has seen veneer prices.
Joe Homeowner does not have to be a veneer grader...just know that his scraggly little yard tree is not worth a premium. If he wants to market it, he can research the market in places where (like here) it is discussed by experts, not his idiot brother inlaw or the guys at the coffee shop who sell shoes for a living.

I went to the trouble of writing my thoughts on the subject and adding a page to my site about it. I think I have linked it here before. (It may be skewed just slightly towards a buyers market, but that is what I am)
http://nelsonwoodworks.biz/pb/wp_9ed660e8/wp_9ed660e8.html?0.05352823751965585

I think most people know a good tree when they see it. And good trees are worth decent money. It is the guys with lesser trees (and the people that would buy them) that need some education. That is my 2 cents.

[Ironwood]

Daren

Nice site. Good explantation of the various things you do and why.


                Ironwood

[Daren]

Daren

Nice site. Good explantation of the various things you do and why.


                Ironwood

Thanks Reid, glad you took the time to visit.

[Gary_C]

Ron makes a good point. I have passed on many calls to buy walnut logs and trees with out even a look because I was convinced they wanted too much, or it was going to have metal, or I could not make any money, or it would take too much time and expense to retrieve the log. You sometimes have to be reminded that people almost revere walnut and are offended when you lack interest in their logs.

Reminds me of a Woodmizer owner that does custom sawing in the Twin Cities. He got a call from a home owner in one of the suburbs that had one walnut log he wanted sawed. The guy did not care that there was a $175 minimum, he wanted that log sawed. Turns out it was a huge house owned by a Doctor and the "log" was a 6 inch limb that had broke off his beautiful walnut tree. So the sawyer set up in the Doctors driveway and in just a few minutes he sawed that limb into boards and that Doctor was just tickled with his treasure. And the sawyer left with $175 for a half hour of work and everyone was happy.

So no amount of education is going to make that reverence for walnut go away.  The only suggestion I would make is to offer to custom saw those prized walnut logs and let the owner sell those boards at $5 or $10 per foot.

[Ron Wenrich]

I think there are more homeowners that can't even tell you what type of tree they have, let alone whether its a good tree or not.  I've run into plenty of landowners that think they have good forest trees that end up being a little bit bigger than firewood.

Your site points out what you want, but when you do a search, it doesn't come up.  What does come up is Steve Nix's site and he has a pretty good explanation of what may or may not be a good tree.  He also advises on what to expect to happen when equipment is brought in.  He's looking at it from a forester's viewpoint.

I also saw a site from Wisconsin that also gave pretty much the same perspective.  They also included mills that would be willing to buy yard trees. 

Continuing on what Gary_C just posted, I had a client that had 200 acres of timber.  I marked the timber and put it up for sale and sold the timber.  What he wanted more than anything else was to have some lumber from his trees that were around his house.  Not a great deal, just something to make a table.  Seems that a tree with homeowner memories have an enhanced value. 

Do homeowners need educated?  Yes.  But, it has to be done in a manner that allows them to not come out looking like a fool.  A landowner taking limbs down to 2" is someone who doesn't know what is worthwhile and what is not.  You have to admire his resoucefulness.

Where homeowners come into the biggest problem is putting a price on a tree.  They have no idea, and selling a tree is probably similar to selling a used car.   There are no blue books for trees or other selling guides.  So, they wing it.  Some fly, some don't. 

[Daren]

Your site points out what you want, but when you do a search, it doesn't come up. 

It is not for general consumption really. Just for local people who contact me, I give them the link instead of going through the whole spiel for the 1000th time. I have my log sources and they are pretty reliable. I just spent too much time early on looking at the 40" across walnuts that when I got there turned out to be 40" around  : From a business standpoint I had to weed out some of the goose chasing, time on the phone/e-mail.

I know what you are saying some about homeowners not knowing trees, point taken. Then again I am not dealing with them as much, unless I initiate contact for some reason (see a tree I want). Most of my "yard logs" even come through referral, not out of the blue so much. I do not advertise in any fashion.

What Gary_C is saying about someone having a little/low grade log custom sawn is another subject all together. I have milled some weird ones. I do not think ill of those kind of people, in fact I commend them. I wish more people would think about making usable material from whatever sort of tree they have instead of just burn it or let it rot away. Many times I have milled/dried a log for someone else that they had more $ in than the fair market value of the material when all is said and done. But it had sentimental value and instead of going and buying material that was cut just for the purpose of said material they "treecycled".

Just don't try to sell me 180 bft. of rotten yard tree for $450 and expect me to clean up the mess too, or do $1000 worth of tree service work for $100 log. That was what I was saying. Trees have value, and should be thought of as a commodity not waste material (I am talking urban trees here because that is my business, I cannot speak about forestry as agriculture with any knowledge). But that value is often not understood and overinflated out of ignorance. You are right there is no "blue book" for old logs (I like that analogy by the way  ;)) and not many sources for people looking to sell to even educate themselves. I guess that is where all this urban legend stuff comes from "What's his face down the street told a friend of a guy my brother works with he sold a walnut tree out of his front yard for $1000" 

I don't know what the answer is to the question "how to educate", we all know some people will just never learn. Or just reject reality altogether because that is just their nature, be they stubborn or just nuts. I do what I can to educate my market sector, that is all I can do. The guy who sent me the note that originally started this thread for example, he got a link to the page I linked here. He is not in my market, he is out of state. But he took that information and passed on the tree, and will use it in future dealings. He obviously did not have a clue or he would not have contacted me, 1 down 10,000,000 to go  :P

[TexasTimbers]

You did forward it to me Daren. I think my reply was, in part, something like:

It would not suprise me if they actually end up selling it because seems to be as many stupid buyers as there are sellers.

I think stories like this are half the fun in dealing with the public in our business. I don't know why I get so many walnut and other hardwood trees given to me. Would someone please explain to me what I am doing wrong? :D

Serioulsy, I will share how it happens most of the time and maybe some of you can benefit from me sharing this. It all sort of dawned on me gradually, it was not like I had an epiphany one day. It took me a while to figure this out.

For the longest I would dread going to look at the "Big/Huge/Giant/Large" cedar`trees that people had in their pastures and woods because they rarely turned out to be worth cutting. It took me a little while to learn the proper questions to ask on the phone to weed out the useless.  Most of the time they were marginal at best, but sometimes I will get acres of wonderful sawlogs. It took me a while but on many of those cedar excursions I would be able to tell the landowner pretty quick "Well Bill these trees just aren't quite old enough yet let's let 'em grow another 10 years or so". I feel like it does not make them feel as offended as when i would say at first "No I can't use these your trees are just too small Bill." Telling them they are too young just gets a more positive reaction from people I have noticed this. usually they say "Oh, okay I see" when in reality they had no clue until I described what makes a cedar tree a good sawlog. Then they say "But I sure don't want them around for another ten years!"

SSo I say well I will give you the number of a guy who will come in and grind them up for you at no charge.'

"What? Really? What's his number?"
So I say I'll write it down for you when we get back to the truck. And i would give them his number and often they would get a deal worked out with HArold (whom cedarman knows and yes Richard he finally wised up and quit paying for trees) and get their cedar removed gratis! I was their hero.

But even before all that hapened and even before we would get back to the truck, right after I said "Well these trees are still a little young yet let's 'em grow some more." I would immediately follow up with "But I sure could use some walnut and a few other select hardwoods I'm short on right now if you have any."

I can't explain why but it has worked like a charm many times. Very few times has someone responded that they had Walnut but they would only sell them. I have not been without Walnut logs for two years. I have more on the stump. Those honey locust I refered to in another thread today I got them the same way, except that the cedar that I went out there to look at turned out to be very nice. So i got those as well, and the landowner who is 70 and retired kept up with me felling and limbing and bucking all day. he also wants work at hte mill now. i may have gotten something more valuable than trees. He is a good man and is bored and wants to work for wood. He is redoing the interior of his house in cedar and wants to build some sheds and a barn over then next couple of years. i think i have finally have a reliable hand!

Back to this particular story, we were making our way back to the truck, having walked in, and I made mention "I am short of honey locust lately do you have any need for yours? He says "I don't have any honey locust or else you could have them I want to make a bigger killing filed all around this draw and put in another blind up on the ridge."
"Well this tree right here with all these thorns is a honey locust. We have walked by about 100 just in the last 15 minutes."
"Ohhh I had no idea those were honey locust I thought honey locust had those prickly balls on them."
"Nope those are sweetgum."

So maybe one key to getting free hardwood is simply like I have said in the past. just come right out and ask for them. But I have always done this honest I have not ever planned it out like going in for cedar as a ruse. If I had it probably would have never worked. I found the mesquite woods the exact same way. There is also the biggest walnut in there i have personally seen. It intimidates me a little to cut this one down. I don't know why but I just no longer feel ten feet tall and bullet proof. :

Should I cut the walnut this winter when it is at the coldest part of the season or does it matter? I would like to leave it on the stump until this spring or even summer when my big kiln is ready.

[Daren]

Should I cut the walnut this winter when it is at the coldest part of the season or does it matter? I would like to leave it on the stump until this spring or even summer when my big kiln is ready.

You should cut it now, before someone else does  :D. I put the laughing thingy, but that was a serious answer. I have had a couple get away from me (guy changes his mind?/son in law sells it to buy dope  :'(...) Cut it/mill it now and let it air dry some until your kiln is ready. Or if you are out of room for air drying it is not going to hurt it (much) to lay this winter up off the ground and endsealed.

[TexasTimbers]

I am pretty confident about this being a steady gig but you are right. He could call me up in ten minutes and say "Hey you gotta quit logging we just got an unexpected offer on this place for a gold mine!"

I guess I better get while the gettin is good. But I have so many places like this. This walnut is special though I guess it better go in front of the line.