I am currently having some TSI done in my wood lot and while talking to the Forrester I mentioned that I pick yo my new mill on August 29th. After a little more conversation he told me that he has access to a lot of free logs of varying species. Being a forrestry guy he runs into A lot of people not interested in the logs after he does the Timber Stand improvement.
Anyhow , he has hooked me up with a bunch ( like 7 acres) of felled 24" cedar from a Tsi job. I'm going to haul all my stuff, tractor, winch, skidsteer and mill to the site and the Forrester is going to help me skid, stage and saw this cedar on the weekends.
He will probably supply a lot of free logs this way in the future.
We plan on splitting the lumber., what's the split? Is it 50/50 since he found it and felled it? I own all the equipment with my uncle so I'll have to split my share wit him. Or is the split 33/33/33..
What's fair for everybody? Thoughts?
I really don't know about the split #'s, but if 24" cedar is what you are cutting in a TSI job just how big are your primary trees????
I don't know as I haven't been there yet. But I'm guessing it was a glade restoration project.
This is another tricky situation in my opinion. And it really boils down to your sawing cost in regards to just sawing. Who is selling the lumber? It sounds like two options here at least. A straight flat rate for the bd, footage, or, a split on the out come of the total of the sales, if you have to wait, well, this is what it is, if it is a flat rate then you should be paid when the job is done. You could prosper from the wait, or, take the cash and move on, which brings into the tricky situation. this is your call. it boils down to who is selling, and for how much. just my opinion.
My suggestion would be you put some realistic dollar values on things.
Start with the value of the logs where they lay now? That's the Forrester's input to the deal, and is worth "X" dollars. I'm assuming he could sell the logs where they lay, and be paid something right?
Then you have to haul the logs out. That's going to take however many hours with you and your Uncle's equipment, So you can put "Y" dollars on that part. I'm assuming that part is then split between your Uncle and you?
Then you saw it, which is going to cost "Z" dollars.
Now you have a total cost to produce those sawn boards, and know the % that each party put into getting there.
Different value logs? Some logs alone might be worth 20c bd/ft, others might be $1
Easy to recover, or need to truck a long distance?
Sawing cost is the similar whether you are cutting cheap pine or expensive walnut.
So it might be that the logs are worth 35c, and the skidding and trucking comes to another 35, and sawing is another 35? Or it might be some other numbers?
Ian
Sounds like a potential (or real) conflict of interest, if a Forester is getting free logs, and then taking away free lumber from your split.
But if you are ok with it, and it isn't something stinky hanging around your neck, then no problem here.
But the LO may be a bit interested if he/she sees a mill turning out nice lumber from the trees cut off their land.
Might be better to get the logs hauled away and do it on the QT. Just a thought from what I read in the OP.
Don't want this to sound negative, and wish you well getting the sawing done and the lumber.
When I had logs available, but no saw, I agreed with a sawmill owner to give him half the lumber for sawing, and we would split 50/50 the other half. I thought that was fair. Ended up with about 5000 bdft of high quality red oak.
I recomend you go have a look at what is there before talking any kind of numbers with him. There are 24" cedars out there, but they aren't common and 7 acres of them would be quite a bonanza. I would think a forester with any integrity at all would want for his customer to know the money value of that much cedar of that size. Hard to believe any land owner would say no to the value. Sounds too good to be true to me.
i would require a written release from the landowner, otherwise you might end up paying 2 x the value of the logs. as for the split if your skidding, probally 60/40 with the 60 being yours.
but look at the logs alot of the time 24" cedar is dryrotted in the center
I would definitely go take a look first. There may be 7 trees or 70. How's the terrain? Who's dealing with the slash if it's even a concern? Etc.
I don't know anything about a foresters duties and their obligations to a client, and do understand that there are folks who may purposely and/or blindly give away what they initially thought to be garbage and rethink it later. I'd just make sure that everyone is happy and it didn't affect my name in the community. Good luck.
Allan
I cannot fathom TSI'ing 24" cedars. 12" and wider lumber easily fetches $2.50 per board foot in the right markets. Something not normal here.
The land owner had to pay to have the TSI done I assume.
A fallen 24" cedar will smother whatever it covers. So that makes no sense.
Cutting the cedar down is a small part of cutting down and limbing. Limbing is the hard part.
I would visit the site before making any kind of commitment.
Verify quality, quantity and size of the cedar.
Check with landowner as they are the landowners trees not the foresters unless he has a contract specifying that TSI trees become the foresters property.
At least that is where I would start.
Quote from: beenthere on August 22, 2014, 11:37:19 PMBut the LO may be a bit interested if he/she sees a mill turning out nice lumber from the trees cut off their land.
Might be better to get the logs hauled away and do it on the QT. Just a thought from what I read in the OP.
I had a situation very similar to this. The landowner had a SYP lightning struck in her front yard. Her forester told her that the tree was not marketable because the bark had slipped. (which was true) Hauling away and disposal would have been cost prohibitive, so he asked for the tree himself and he would hire me to saw it up. The tree yielded 2785 bf of framing lumber.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/2410/DSCN0135.JPG)
The problem was when the landowner came out and saw a trailer load of lumber. She lost her lid, called her forester a lying thief, and fired him on the spot. I then had to convenience her that I was only being paid to saw the logs and had no other interest in the deal.
I was sorta like the cowboy explaining; "look lady, you can have the moose, just let me get my saddle off of him".
I was pondering on how to say - buy the logs and remove them from the property.
Magicman said it a whole lot better than I could, and I totally agree with what he said.
Gerald
Log and lumber deals with no money exchanged is going to cost you money out of pocket. You being the sawyer. Getting logs to mill or taking mill to logs exspence should be separate. Don't bundle the deal .It is worth doing just for the learning curve. Good luck on you venture. I've been trying to stay clear of horse trading deals but for some reason they seem to find me.
I dont have an opinion here,but I am very interested to hear how it turns out. teeter_totter
cheers john
I agree with redbeard. Get the logs off the property and onto your place. If I have to haul the logs to my mill its a 75/25 split. Around here some loggers split the price of the logs they take from the landowner. 50/50 split for what ever the mill pays.
This could be on the level, but there are plenty of red warning flags, and I agree that the landowner should be informed that they are giving away logs that aren't valueless, such as may be portrayed to them by the forester. If the landowner fully agrees and understands, then it's time to get down to business, if not, then it's time to tell the forester goodbye...
YH
I saw ERC each year for a logger that removes it from properties that he has logged. I have no idea of any arrangements with the respective landowners for the logs or the final disposition of the lumber.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/2410/DSCN0201.JPG)
He always has it staged neatly.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/2410/DSCN0352b.JPG)
I saw it and it is loaded onto a trailer.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/2410/DSCN0353%7E0.JPG)
When the trailer gets full it is time for another trailer. ;D
I'm wondering if this is a situation where the forester should be receiving a finders fee. The amount dependent on the cost of the logs.
In our area when doing TSI work large trees are girdled, never cut down. In the past when cedar was TSI'd, they were girdled. Now if a forester says get rid of the cedar, it is sold standing and logged.
To me it is a huge red flag that the forester didn't recommend to the land owner that he sell the standing cedars. This way the cedars are killed according to the management plan and the proceeds can be used for other TSI work such as grape vine control and invasive species control.
Since there is no readily available market for ERC in my area, when the landowners say "get rid or them" the loggers end up with a pile at their truck yard.
MM, Giles and Kendal truck a lot of cedar from Ms to Huntsville. Usually tree length down to about 4". When I was in the Huntsville yard a month ago, they must of had 100 tractor trailor loads and wanting more. I am surprised the loggers in your area don't call them.
I am up in the northern part of the state, and over the last 6 months or so I have seen several loads of tree length cedars on the move. Didn't know where they were going. In the county I live in cedars are few and far between on most land, go over a few counties in Al. and they seem plentiful. The cedar that I am putting on my house renovation was given to me by a landowner that was doing tsi on his place... I sawed a good bit of pine for him. He just did not want the cedar to go to waste. Wasn't much of it. Banjo
I wouldn't saw on shares. Typically someone needs your saw worse than you need their logs. I would offer to buy some logs if they were ones I wanted or I would offer to charge for sawing but that's it. Keep it simple.
MM Why is there no market for cedar in your area? Here in British Columbia it is always in demand.Just Curious.
Dan
Not sure about the market in MM's area, but do know the two of you have different types of cedar. MM is speaking of Eastern Red Cedar. I suspect you are refering to Port Orford.
Quote from: Dan R on August 24, 2014, 11:36:35 PM
MM Why is there no market for cedar in your area? Here in British Columbia it is always in demand.Just Curious.
Dan
Our cedar is western red cedar theirs is eastern red cedar. Big difference in market
The solar group makes cedar mail box posts. I believe their MS office is in Taylorsville MS which is southwest of Meridian. They wanted us to saw posts for them a few years ago, but were low on price. When we sawed for Cedarworks we were makeing about 10,000 posts per month for them. I think Solar is the only company making a cedar mailbox post now. They are about 3 1/2" x 3 1/2". Solar is owned by the Gibraltor group out of NY.
Solar's office folks could tell if they are buying or where to sell cedar logs.
Huntsville Al mill shaves almost all their logs, so quality is of little concern. They buy by weight.
An ERC operation could be developed here. Trees/logs that are now being pushed and burned would have to be salvaged, but it would take a large tract to produce enough to overcome transportation cost. Then, markets would have to be developed. I am not saying that it could not be done, but it has not been done.
The logger that I saw for accumulates about two log truck loads each year. The logs do not cost him anything, but he incurs transportation cost with both the logs and lumber.
Many of my saw jobs will include a "few" ERC logs that the landowner has.
It takes a critical mass before a cedar mill can make money.
The market is there in the US for cedar. The cedar mills cannot keep up. I am losing orders left and right. The biggest cedar mill in Ky is booked through the end of the year. Arkansas mills cannot fill their orders. The cedar fencing industry is crying for fence wood. The Koreans and Chinese are screaming for more cedar wood. The bottleneck is the few cedar mills that are sawing and an even bigger bottleneck is that loggers are too busy cutting pine and hardwoods to fool with cedar.
There are several billion feet of sawlog cedar in Ok. So the cedar is growing a lot faster than it is being cut. I suspect that will change a little as the price of cedar goes up. Profit motive at work.
Quote from: Cedarman on August 25, 2014, 08:53:17 AMand an even bigger bottleneck is that loggers are too busy cutting pine and hardwoods to fool with cedar.
Yup, that is what I see here. The Cedar is scattered such that accumulating logs would not be impossible but problematic.
a lot of good saw log cedar here in Oklahoma is also going to the pulp industry... not the paper pulp though, apparently they use it ground up in the petroleum ind. even more cedar is being pushed and burned.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/16734/image%7E5.jpg)
This 28 foot and still 10 inches at small end Oklahoma cedar is not going to be made into mulch or fiber. It is going to the sawmill along with many others just like it. :)
Ely, we grind cedar up for LCM. Which is what the oil industry uses in drilling. We have a company that buys over 100 semi loads a year.
LCM stands for lost circulation material. It is used when drilling and the formation is so porous, or faulted, that the drilling mud goes into the formation rather than circulating back to surface.
Well I'm going to look at the cedars this weekend. I'll see if it's all what I'm told. If it is as described I agree ill haul them to my place for milling.
There is just a very small market for cedars around here that I'm aware of. That's the cedar fence guys. I already have about a 500 small ones I plan to split in half. I sell the posts on craigslist for 5 bucks a piece and I've sold about 100 so far. They're all 8 to 10" in dia though. Mostly to people making chicken coups and pens. Nothing like the 24" stuff I'm told about.
The big stuff I may mill into bar tops and put on Craig's list. One thing for sure is this will be a learning experience..
And BTW I pick up my new timberking 1600 tomorrow so I've never sawed a log..
Well, congrats on getting the mill tomorrow. 8)
But would suggest not making any firm log deals until you have a few thousand feet of log sawing under your belt. But that is up to you. ;)
The fence guys near St Louis are screaming for semi loads of fencing. 4x4x8, 2x4x8, and 3/4 5 or 6" x 6' pickets. Also 5/8 thick. You can sell every 2x4 and 4x4 x 8' you can make in St. Charles.
Quote from: Missouriwildman on August 28, 2014, 10:44:17 AM
Well I'm going to look at the cedars this weekend.
And BTW I pick up my new timberking 1600 tomorrow so I've never sawed a log..
Sounds like a fun weekend! 8)
YH