New Service Requested at my mill, advice needed

[123maxbars]

I sale alot of Eastern Red Cedar. Most go to furniture makers who sale their products in Gatlinburg TN (for those who don't know its where Dollywood is located).  Anyways I probably sale about 200 board feet of Cedar to them a week, sometimes more. These are older guys who use old equipment. They told me if I had a planer they would pay to have thier boards planed. I have been looking at the Grizzly Spiral anyways for a few months and I may have found a way to have it pay for its self. My question is what do you charge to plane lumber? I assume you charge by the board foot? Just curious if anyone on here does this and what they charge is, thanks in advance. 

[Cedarman]

We charge 10 cents per board foot one face,  15 cents if both faces and 25 if S4S.  But it has a 26" head and can take off 5/16" if needed.  Not hard to plane 1000 square feet per hour.  We usually saw so that we take off from 1/32 to 1/16" on each face planed.  Fairly profitable, but best profit comes from regrinding, screening and bagging sawdust for specialized markets.
What ever planer you get, make sure it has the spiral head. Much less tear out on the cedar knots. We can plane 50,000 to 100,000 feet before rotating knives.

[YellowHammer]

I have the Grizzley spiral 15 inch, it does pretty well.  I plane small quantities of customer boards they buy from me most every weekend, usually while they are here.  I charge 50 cents a board foot (both faces, no edging) which is probably pretty high, but customers usually pay gladly, especially when they see how many garbage cans of wood chips their new lumber produced.
YH

[customsawyer]

Keep in mind I don't do any planning but I would think it would be better priced by the running ft not the bf.

[tyb525]

Keep in mind I don't do any planning but I would think it would be better priced by the running ft not the bf.

Remember the wider the board the more electricity, wear on the knives, and the machine itself. 100 feet of 4" boards is a lot different from 100' of 12" boards. That's why I charge by board foot.

Of course I am open to why I may be wrong! ;D

[Delawhere Jack]

Do you guys plane green wood? I've found that I get terrible tearout if I try to plane wet boards (hardwoods).

[Bibbyman]

Cedarman, when you plane cedar, do you watch the angle of the knots? 

I had the guy that ran a cedar mill near us advise sawing cedar little end to big end to lessen the tendency for the blade to ride up over the knots.  He went on to advise plane the opposite direction on outside face to avoid tear out.  Turn the board 180 for the inside.

They didn't plane most of their cedar closet lining but had big belt panel sanders they ran it through.

[tyb525]

Do you guys plane green wood? I've found that I get terrible tearout if I try to plane wet boards (hardwoods).

Some mills do plane green wood (not to finished size though), it's supposed to help reduce drying defect. And I think it is easier to plane green, making less work when they plane to finished size after it dries.

As far as tearout, I would think it would be less with good knives and straight grained wood. Maybe the angle of the knives needs to be different. I don't have any personal experience planing greed wood, I'm afraid to put it through my little lunchbox planer due to the moisture.

[tyb525]

  He went on to advise plane the opposite direction on outside face to avoid tear out.  Turn the board 180 for the inside.

If all the knots run the same direction, yes it does reduce tearout.

Think of it as petting a dog, you want the blade to cut "with" the grain, not against it. Sometimes you can tell which way the knot is going by looking, sometimes by looking at the grain on the edge of the board, sometimes it's just trail and error. And yes once you determine the right direction, turn the board end for end to do the other side.

It is the opposite when sawing I think, you want the grain running the "wrong" way. Sawing from the little end should do this, providing the limbs grew at a somewhat downward angle, which cedar does. And that way it is easier to tell what you can get out of the log.

[DouginUtah]

Remember the wider the board the more electricity, wear on the knives, and the machine itself. 100 feet of 4" boards is a lot different from 100' of 12" boards. That's why I charge by board foot.

Of course I am open to why I may be wrong! ;D

It seems to me that charging by the SQUARE FOOT would be appropriate.

[customsawyer]

Like I said I don't do any planning so I don't know. It just seems it would take as much time to run a 4" board as it does a 12" board. I have never run a planner so if it is like sawing and you are able to go at a faster feed rate on the narrower board then my thoughts would be wrong.

[okmulch]

Most planers are at least 12 inches wide so if you did plane by the lineal foot couldn't you run three  4 inch boards at a time? So this way you triple your money with one pass as opposed to a 12 inch board.

[Cedarman]

When planing at 25 to 30 linear feet per minute, it is a challenge to get 4 or 5 boards up and in per minute.  We do a lot of 3 1/2 and 4" boards 8' long. As fast as you can pick up the boards.
With the helical head we do not worry about which end goes in. Very little tear out.
If we need it really smooth we run it through the belt sander after planing.
Ideally for cedar a big abrasive planer with 2 or 3 wide belts would be best.  This is what the cedar panel companies use.

It is important that when running more than one board at a time that the chip breakers have good down pressure or boards are uniform thickness to prevent kick back.  A planer is like a loaded gun.  It can go off at unexpected times.

[YellowHammer]

Wider boards take more time for me, especially since I mainly plane hardwoods such as oak, hickory, and beech.  For example, I can take a 4/4 red oak board 8-10 inches wide and take 1/8" each pass in high gear so two passes makes a finished board very quickly.  At wider than 10 inches, I have to either reduce the cut to 1/16 each pass in high gear, or downshift the transmission to about half speed and maintain the 1/8" cut.  If I get to some real tough, wide wood near the capacity of the planer, I have to go to low gear and only take 1/16" each pass, further reducing time.  In softer wood, I can be much more aggressive, but I don't get much of that. 
I don't like running multiple boards, like Cedarman says, things can go wrong real fast.   
YH

[tyb525]

It seems to me that charging by the SQUARE FOOT would be appropriate.

Doug, square foot=board foot when talking about 4/4 lumber. Thicker lumber could be considered 4/4 also when it comes to planing, unless it is much thicker then it gets more difficult to handle and will cost more.

I was thinking of non-industrial planers where width does make a difference, but on the real heavy duty planers width might not matter as much.

I would not like planing 200 linear feet of 12" wide boards compared to 200 feet of 4" wide boards. Charging the same regardless of width just doesn't make sense in that case.

[red oaks lumber]

square foot and board foot are only the same in the rough form, once you plane or mold the sides of a board you are now talking actual size of coverage or square foot.
a 1x6 8' is 4 bf if you make 5" cover t&g now you have 3.33.sq.ft.

[tyb525]

I'm saying the calculation for board feet and square surface feet are the same regardless of thickness when you calculate for 4/4 lumber. So it doesn't really matter if you use board feet or square feet unless the thickness increases your burden.

Molding such as tongue and groove and straight edging is different. I was talking S2S.

[pasbuild]

I beleave the planer your looking at is two speeds  if this is true and you do not have variable speed ability  it will take you longer to plane three 4" boards then it will two 6" boards, charging by the lf. is the only way you will maintain your hourly rate / profit margin