"Huge 'slabs' (flitches) are VERY valuable" True or False?

[DR Buck]

now, back to the 'slabs'.........................


I'll let you all know how I make out in March.   I have 15 White Oak slabs from the tree GA Boy, Dan Shade and I took from the Kennedy estate in 2006 (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,18503.0.html)  and (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,21195.0.html).  Most are 34" and up wide by 7 ft long.    They've been air drying for quite some time now and are going in the kiln in the next few days.   March 14-16  I have a couple booths reserved at the Wood Working show in Chantilly VA (thewoodworkingshows.com.  My main objective is to market the portable milling business to local woodworkers (note:  I make most of my milling money from them).  I believe the 3 day attendance is over 5 thousand.   Secondary goal is to liquidate some of my accumulated lumber, including these large slabs.

[metalspinner]

Quote from: flip on Today at 12:56:47 PM
I think it would be immensly cool if someone took a huge slab and was able to use it for flooring.  Nice 5'X12' slab you could walk on.  New way of thinking about "wide" plank flooring.


I thought of doing that on a different scale...take trunk long flitches with branches, knots bullets..etc, still in, bed them on the floor and inlay arond them....kind of a "whole tree" look..you could conceivably put an entire tree in one room..

but it'd be tough to get a smooth floor that way...maybe in a cabin where it doesn't matter...

Member Iain has many pics in his gallery of a floor he made this way.  His work really is beautiful. 

A "sky bridge" joining a loft of some kind would be really cool with a huge live edge slab. 8)

[submarinesailor]

Dave,

IF THINGS GO ANY WHERE NEAR RIGHT, I plan on attending Friday morning.  Do you know what time the doors open to the public.

Bruce

[DR Buck]

Bruce,

I haven't seen the detailed schedule yet.  But if like previous years, it opens to the general public at noon.   If you sign up for the pay seminars that are held in the morning, they let you in.

Update : Friday, March 14 / Noon - 7pm
              Saturday, March 15 / 10am - 6pm
              Sunday, March 16 / 10am - 4pm

[WIwoodworker]

Brad...The key to selling anything unusual is to market it to people in a higher end setting. Some of my clients make hand crafted hardwood floors and pay me above market value for wide or highly figured wood to make their floors more distinctive. A frind just made a floor that included pieces made from 23" wide Walnut I sold him.  I just got a call from one the other day that wants two 8/4 by at least 24" to 30" wide elm flitches up to 10' long to make a table for a client. I could have helped him if he wanted walnut or maple but not elm.

Price to his client for the table??? Between $10k and $15k. Out of my league for sure but there are people who have no problem writing the checks. You just have to find them.

A previous poster has it right about pricing...I find it much easier to market large and unusual items priced by the piece rather than the bf. With burls I used to price by the pound but found it much easier to sell when priced by the piece. Hope this is helpful.

[Ironwood]

Brad S.

These are at least 400lbs each and I used a crane to  sling them and swing them in place.

All I can say is it costs a boat load of money to market to the higher end, I am about to write a check for a show in Manhattan that would make your head spin, that does't include all the time or opportunity cost. This all looks really profitable until you add in the "losers" which invariably become part of the mix. Some logs are home runs and others.............well, lets just say I have a fair bit of money rotting up in my field. At some level you are playing averages. I do it in a small enough scale to hopefully limit my loses.


         Ironwood

[Dan_Shade]

I think Reid hit on an important point, which shows why those big and wide boards cost so much:

• it's very difficult to saw and handle those very wide and thick boards/slabs/flitches
• it's very difficult to dry the very wide and thick boards/slabs/flitches where they end up flat and not twisted and/or busted up
• it takes a bit of creative marketing and salesmanship to move the product

opportunity cost is something that many people have a hard time grasping and understanding, but it's real, and it does impact things.  from sawing alone, I know I can often saw an entire "smaller" log in the time it takes me to cut one flitch with a chainsaw mill.  and then you need a crane or forklift to move a lot of the big stuff.  it all adds up.

[pauldumond]

Do you sell your large slabs?  What do they cost?

Regards,

Paul

[metalspinner]

Welcome aboard, Paul!

Thanks for pulling this thread up.  I enjoyed reading it again.   Makes me want to get out to the shop and make something. ;D

[DR Buck]

now, back to the 'slabs'.........................


I'll let you all know how I make out in March.   I have 15 White Oak slabs from the tree GA Boy, Dan Shade and I took from the Kennedy estate in 2006 (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,18503.0.html)  and (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,21195.0.html).  Most are 34" and up wide by 7 ft long.    They've been air drying for quite some time now and are going in the kiln in the next few days.   March 14-16  I have a couple booths reserved at the Wood Working show in Chantilly VA (thewoodworkingshows.com.  My main objective is to market the portable milling business to local woodworkers (note:  I make most of my milling money from them).  I believe the 3 day attendance is over 5 thousand.   Secondary goal is to liquidate some of my accumulated lumber, including these large slabs.

FDH.....Started pricing by the PIECE. This one X $$$, that one  X $$$$. How many bd/ft   Don't know and don't care. I'm selling 1 PIECE.

  That started to get interesting, because they quit asking about bd/ft. I wouldn't talk about bd/ft, just THIS PIECE.

Selling by the piece is just what I've done with the white oak slabs.   I've sold 13 so far.  Only sold 2 at last years Woodworking show, but had a few follow-up calls that sold 2 more.  Then I advertised them locally as "bar tops" and had a run on them.   Average income has been around $350 for a 3 inch thick 7' long  x ~ 26"  wide piece.

Also, at the woodworking show, I priced ALL of by boards by the piece.   Nothing was sold by the board foot.   Prior to the show I calculated the "starting price" using a bdft figure then added or subtracted based on how good or bad it looked to come up the "by the piece" price.   It worked out great.  No haggling over if it was 2.8 or 3 bf.    Just pay what the sticker says.    This method works for the box stores and retail outlets and it works for me.
Most of the kiln dried stuff stacked in my insulated sea container is priced by the board so when customers stop by, thats the price.  ;D

[Dana]

Welcome back Paul. I havent seen any post from you in a long time. Are you still building executive furniture with slabs?

[Don_Papenburg]

Hey Norm , You looking in on this thread?  How wide are your slabflitchboards?  Would you sell to someone from a state with a lot of gov'ners in the pen or fixen to get in one? 
  I may be short on wide boards for cabinet panels.   

  At a hardwood suplier  I was looking at his "1x8" walnut boards"   They werer 1x4s glued together without regard for grain match or color variation.    They are frekin 1x8s  you don't have to glue up tooth picks to make em . 

Any way you guys should be sell ing  wide boards to cabinet shops as I have seen a lot of mismatched glueups in the raised panels  coming out of those places.  a lot looks like it was made from slabwood that should have been heating a house .

[Norm]

Morning Don. Kind of forgot about this thread but funny as I had an  old friend of mine asking for a live edge piece to make a table out of. If you get bored put on some ice skates and we'll dig through my junk piles of wood to see if I have anything you can use.

[WILDSAWMILL]

This is a table that a local guy makes and sells. It's macrocarpa cypress so it's durable outside, and the thickness of the slab means it will last for YEARS.

When you look at the slab it would be hard to saw a clear board out of the log - too many big knots. But you can slab it and make $1500 tables from it  ;) In fact the wilder the grain the more it's worth, a bit of epoxy to fill any bug holes and it's good to go.



Cheers

Ian

so what kind of finish wood you use on a project like this
do you finish the under side allso
how dry should the slab be before appling finish

[tyb525]

Whenever I cut a log with my chainsaw mill I always try to get a flitch/slab/live edge board from it. I just love the looks of them, and I always tell myself what a beautiful tabletop, etc it would make. If it doesn't work out for whatever reason, I can always cut the bark off and then it's just like a regular wide board.

[Don_Papenburg]

Norm, What kind of widths do you have ? And lengths ?A  swag will on sizes ,I don't know what I need yet .         I would think that you had them all cataloged  :D   

[Norm]

I do Don...as one big pile. :D

Most are 8' with the wide ones being walnut with some other varieties mixed in. When I moved my shop I just made a mess by putting the wood on pallets and stacking them. I keep saying I'm going to sort them but that darn ambition keeps getting in my way. ;D

[Part_Timer]

I think it is funny that this thread showed up again.  I have been trying to work out in my head how to store and show slabs.  We might be purchasing 3 acers behind the house this summer, if this works out I will be building a sawmill shed as well as a kiln and lumber storage.

I was thinking of a way to stack and sticker the slabs under a pair of I beams with a chainfall on each end of the slab pile.  This way I could sling part of the stack raise it up and slide the slab I want out of the stack with a mold cart.  I still have a few details to work out.  Ya know like getting the land purchased ;) but hay a guy can dream can't he.

[DR Buck]

I have been trying to work out in my head how to store and show slabs.

Here is what I came up with for "showing slabs".  I built these stands using 8x8 Poplar drilled to hold 1/2" rebar 4" apart.  The slabs stand up between the vertical rebar for easy viewing with falling over.   For the large (5 ft wide) slab iin the middle I used 3/4" rebar.    When I store then at home, they stand (lean) vertical against the wall of my insulated storage container.

[Part_Timer]

That's a good idea.  I bet that works great for the shows.

[Don_Papenburg]

I know about ambition getting in the way .  I think he is related to murphy

[urbanlumberinc]

There's a market out there for slabs, you've just got to go looking for it. 

[Smokey]

WOW

I just had to bump this topic up, I plan on building a sawmill just to build a house with slab(flitch) furniture like some that are in these posts.

A guy can dream can't he ???

Smokey

[Ianab]

A guy can dream can't he ?

Dont dream it, do it.

Big slabs like that can be cut with an "Alaskan" type chainsaw mill. Sure it will take you all day to slice up a big butt log or crotch, but you end up with something that you just cant go and buy from a normal timber supplier.

The slabs (or flitches) you saw from one big log could pay for the big chainsaw you need to cut them, + plus a days sweat and a can of gas, it's still a good deal.

I have some nice live edge slab in the shed, well air dried now, and overdue to be made into furniture. I could buy ones like them locally, for several hundred $$, but the Big Kahuna is a 16ft x 36" x 3" piece of cypress, that will make 2 tables. Try and buy one of those at any retail place?  They will never have seen a piece of wood like that, especially not walnut or cypress.

Want to put a value on this slab?


It's in sections, but it's 4" slice from a small Kauri Pine.

Ian

[sigidi]

Interesting read regarding slab sales over there. For clarification purposes we call 'em slabs down here when they have two flat faces and both edges are natural or live and when they have one flat face and the round of the log as the other face, then we call 'em flitches.

I regularly sell slabs for $2,000 - $3,000 per cubic metre or per 424 bft I sell 'em so often that I don't have any I've done slabbing jobs on a busy road and used a lumber crayon to write a sign on the first two slabs off the log, chucked 'em up along the road and sold slabs straight off the log 8) ;D

After cutting this one;



it was around 800lb per stick, took 45 min to cut and 15 min to stack on the 'cut pile', pushed out around 80lb of sawdust to cut it. She's almost 4' wide the full length, around 15' long and cut at 2.5" thick. I did some ringing around to guys who sold this kind of thing in the city out of 'timber supply places' and came to a figure of around $1,000AU per stick pretty cool for one hours work if you can get enough of it hey?