American Elm Price

[Stephen1]

I was just offered 2 American Elm logs. 24"x 12' from a local farmer. Grown in a tree line, but no fencing according to him. His family has lived there for 100 years.
This is in Ontario Canada. 
What are they worth a bd ft? There is 300 bd ft. Doyle per log. 
What would some of you pay delivered ? Picked up by yourself?

[doc henderson]

I am a hobby guy.  I get tons for free.  it is an interesting, beautiful wood in many projects.  If you plan to saw and sell it, start with what you want to get from it, and add each stage of processing what you intend to make.  It is under appreciated so who knows what folks will pay.  I know a couple who almost paid 8 K for a table on one of the coasts and were told it was a domestic exotic hardwood.  It was elm.

 

 

 

 

 

[curved-wood]

I did some beautifull furniture, just oil, super nice grain. It is difficult to put a price for a small mill like me. It is better to have a customer before getting the logs in the yard. I've got my best price from somebody use it as a floor for a bulldozer float. 

[mudfarmer]

There is not likely anywhere else to sell two elm logs to, they are worth what you'll pay him because otherwise they will get turned to firewood. It is very nice as the other guys said, and I would try to make the deal if you can. Here it dies before it gets anywhere near that large, I have a 16" to saw next week and won't see another for a while.

[beenthere]

I was just offered 2 American Elm logs. 24"x 12' from a local farmer. Grown in a tree line, but no fencing according to him. His family has lived there for 100 years.
This is in Ontario Canada.
What are they worth a bd ft? There is 300 bd ft. Doyle per log.
What would some of you pay delivered ? Picked up by yourself?

No pics of the logs..??
Pay nothing, would be my suggestion. Get paid to haul them would be my other suggestion. Could be worth a lot, but unknown until after you saw them and open them up. 
Why no pics? 

[Andries]

Seems Beenthere is a highly visual kinda guy. 😁😉
I like his suggestion that the farmer pay you to remove his unwanted trees, or at least free, if you have the equipment to move them.
Elm isn't normally found in the usual lumber markets but it is a beautiful hardwood. It's a "lively" wood with interlocking grain. Tricky to get it dried and planed out straight but unique and expensive when processed properly. 
Local prices will apply but don't sell your hard work for cheap. 

[Southside]

Here those would be tie logs, with a few free feet tacked onto them.  Too short for a switch tie and too long for a tie.  Maybe $375 / MBF, but measured at 9' and not 12'.  

I agree it's a pretty wood and sawn correctly can do a lot better, but the value of the log is just that, the value of the log, not what you can turn it into. 

[SwampDonkey]

Many a living room wall in this region was dressed with elm paneling in the 70's. Has a beautiful grain, but makes a room a bit dark. As for lumber, that is challenging. Had some air dry, twisted like a piece of licorice twister candy. :D Don't over price the logs. You have a market for elm? Think it over well. ;)

[barbender]

 There's a few ways of looking at this. Being a farmer, he could've just as easily pushed the logs into the burn pile, but he went through the trouble of saving them. 

 I've saved a ton of "highly valuable" burls over the years, guess how many people I've had show up and put money in my hand for them? Zero. I've gotten a few offers to take some for free. Guess how many burls I'll save in the future?

 I'd pay him market rate, delivered if he's willing to haul them to you- if you have a use for them.

[Al_Smith]

It's very seldom they get large enough to cut lumber from .I have gathered up the skinny dead ones and have a few stacked up for side loading logs .These will bend like a noodle before they break .IMO it's not the best of  firewood and a chore to split even with a hydraulic splitter .
Fact in the 26 years I've lived here I've only cut one dead standing that was a foot in diameter .Most were 6-8 inch .

[SwampDonkey]

I've seen a few 40"+ wide at dbh up here. Some died, quite few were even cut down.

Elm was used up here on stable floors under horses. It stood up better to the treading action of horses in their stalls.

Not many up this way bother making firewood with it, too tough and stringy. Maple and yellow birch and at one time beech are the mainstay fire woods up this way. Most folks just let it rot, and it rots away quite quickly. My cousin about ruined a hydraulic wood splitter on a big old 40 incher. Darn thing was in the middle of the field, got tired of going around it. :D I had a 36" incher sawed. Lumber twisted every which way. :D





45" measured above the burl.  That woods was clear cut since.

[barbender]

 I've only stalled the splitter on my firewood processor a handful of times. A couple were crotches that I tried to split top first. The others were elm. Not even that big, 12" or so from a nice straight log. On a four way wedge, the knives are properly staggered. It didn't even go through the first vertical knife. Just hit it and done, might as well have been a block of steel. Finally had to beat it off the wedge, and pitch the block. Tried cutting the next block off and splitting it (because I'm smart like that) and stalled it again. But this one got about 2" through the wedge before it stalled. I thought I was going to have to burn or chisel it off the wedge. 3rd block (I'm nothing if not stubborn😁) finally split. 

 Elm of any size are rare here, and it usually ends up in loads of Ash. I'm always a bit apprehensive when I run into it.

[Al_Smith]

I'm old enough to remember when there were some big ones .They died faster than the ash trees of late .They just like the ash are still sending up saplings but they never get any size to them .A long time ago the wood was valued for wagon tongues because it was just plain tough .You could back over it with a tractor and all it did was bend where oak would break .

[barbender]

 I suppose like many things, Dutch Elm Disease got up here after most everywhere else. I can still remember huge hulking dead standing specimens 3'-4' diameter, around some of the local lakes back in the 80's and 90's. 

 In fact I kinda learned to run a saw cutting firewood at 18-19 years old on dead standing elm. It was good for learning to file a chain too. Also the right age to be trying to chip enough of that devilish wood away so I could fit it through the door of my boss's outdoor boiler.  

[SwampDonkey]

I see a big old one near the only lake near here I'd call a lake. A lot of old elms have tops like that one, fully alive, but not the umbrella look of most elms. You look and look and ask yourself, 'Is that thing an elm?' Looks like Medusa's head of snakes. :D  I have a lot of young elms growing in cedar ground. Young because it was all cut 30 years ago. There's an 80 foot tall one behind the house, growing in the old orchard. Must be 20" by now. That thing must send out a billion seeds every spring. :D

[doc henderson]

the yard trees were good for tree forts, so watch out for nails.  had access to some standing dead elm, and I cut it for firewood using the crates and my track loader, and gooseneck.  



 

 

 

 

brought it home in crates, and dumped them out one at a time, split them, then back in the crates. burned fine that year, with a little more ash, but nice and warm. 

[mike dee]

I was just offered 2 American Elm logs. 24"x 12' from a local farmer. Grown in a tree line, but no fencing according to him. His family has lived there for 100 years.
This is in Ontario Canada.
What are they worth a bd ft? There is 300 bd ft. Doyle per log.
What would some of you pay delivered ? Picked up by yourself?

Nobody likes or wants tree line trees. No even the firewood guys. They are worth whatever you are willing to pay for it. Makes for nice overnight burning firewood logs that's hard to split.

[dairyguy]

Make it a habit to use a metal detector on all fence line trees despite what anybody assures you about their history. 

[Stephen1]

I've been busy finishing up my sawing season. I will go and pick up the logs next week as I have a delivery down by him. 
I will have a look at the logs and make a decision then. It is a rare and beautiful wood for N America for sure. I talked with the owner of the Breezewood stickers, a large sawmill that I have dealt with and he put a price of .50 cents a bd ft if they were nice a clear and showed up at his yard.  
Years ago I was called by a sub-contractor in Vancouver, who did the maintenance on the Canadian Submarines. They were asking for blocks of Elm 24x24x36" long . They used them on the keel of the subs, it was the only wood that didn't break off when the sub hit the bottom .

[Al_Smith]

Since you mentioned "keel blocks " what I've seen at NewPort News plus Electric Boat were big oak blocks .Held up anything from submarines to aircraft carriers in the dry docks .  
If you  want to see examples of heavy rigging take a tour of a ship yard if you can .

[shaneyho]

I was just offered 2 American Elm logs. 24"x 12' from a local farmer. Grown in a tree line, but no fencing according to him. His family has lived there for 100 years.
This is in Ontario Canada.
What are they worth a bd ft? There is 300 bd ft. Doyle per log.
What would some of you pay delivered ? Picked up by yourself?

The average value of American Elm logs for veneer is anywhere $2-$2.50 per board foot. But they are worth what you'll pay him. It could be less than the market price also. 

[Al_Smith]

Another example .Some time ago I went to a local hardwood mill and ordered two 12" by 4" by 8 feet white oak planks for loaders for a D 4 Cat,14,200 pounds  .They worked fine .However the mill owner told me if he had known what my use was to be he'd have used elm but 3" thick .The elm would have gotten lighter as it dried  .The oak would never loose weight .After twenty some years he was correct .I was a lot younger then and today they are about like moving rail road ties . 

[SwampDonkey]

Depends on what state of drying they were in. Oak will loose a lot of water weight when dried to 12%, and won't be much heavier than hard maple. White oak is 45, hard maple 44 and red oak 43 pounds per cub. feet. Red oak is slightly heavier than white oak when green, and 8 lbs heavier than hard maple. Hop hornbeam is 5-6 lb heavier dried than all of them at 12%. That's according to the folks at the forest products lab in WI.

[firefighter ontheside]

I milled and dried some american elm and some red elm.  They were both very pretty.  I was not able to sell any of it, so I used most of it for my bedroom floor project.  I think it's just something that people can't get anywhere and so it's not even on their radar to use.  I also built a door for my master bath with the american elm.  I love the door.  I didn't stain it, but the american elm looks great with a dark stain.

[doc henderson]

I rarely use stain on a project anymore, unless I am trying to match something.  I did some on an oak bench and regretted it.  did not care for the look.