The Forestry Forum

I am wondering what kind of price everyone gets when they plane boards to 3/4 of an inch and straight line rip 1 side. I have a dewalt singe sided planer. I will use a router jig to straight lin rip. The first 70 feet of cherry took about 2 hours. I only charged .50 BF extra. He is wanting 200 BF out of my next batch. Thanks

Its just my 2cents but if you figure $80.00 for you and your tools times 2 hours is $160.00 / by 70 feet is $2.28 a foot or BF. It is what it is, dont work for free 8)
Sam

You cannot cost effectively process that much lumber with the equipment that you have to yield a cost effective outcome for the customer considering commercial high volume alternates.

As long as you recognize that and the customer understands and agrees, then charge an hourly rate that you think is fair.

We charge $.17 to S2S cedar per board foot.  But the machine can take off 5/16" each pass if needed.  Straight lining is done on the WM.   I would charge about $.15 per board foot assuming the boards were in only 4 or 5 widths so that we could edge 4 to 10 at once.
The equipment that you use has a lot to do with how long it will take.

It would take me about 15 minuets to surface and straight line one or both sides. It used to take me more than a day to straight line and run 3-400 ft of t&g flooring. Today I can run it in a couple hours. That taught me you must spend money to make money. I was useing old equipment and sending it through 4 machines. Now it goes through the straight line ripsaw and right into the moulder and gets handled 2 times whereas it used to be handled 8 times or more. Time is money I charge by the hour to plain and Bf to rip.