How small do you go on Cherry logs?

[Daren]

I run a small bandmill for myself and offset my costs by doing a little custom sawing. I have not messed with cherry for much myself, I have sawed some great logs for others (thier logs). The reason I am asking, I have recently been dealing with a guy who been bringing me logs for my own use. He has good timber ground and access to others and has brought over some nice walnut 26"+, hickory, ash ...and I was looking for Osage Orange for a project and he found me a 28" log 12' long in a week. I mentioned the last time he was by I could use some wild cherry. He called today and said he had a trailer load 10"-14" x 14' and some small ones 6", I just don't know. Isn't that on the small side? (the 6" ones for sure)  I don't want to ruin our relationship, he has been easy to work with. The very first load he brought was little, crooked, knotty walnut. I looked it over and told him it was firewood and it went for about $50 ton, he took the $50 and we unloaded it. The following loads have been ok. He has dropped logs and we catch up to pay whenever. I could use some quick schooling on cherry buying. How small do you consider a sawlog? The first deal we had I felt he was selling the saw logs to another mill and brought thier rejects down to me. If this is the way the cherry will go I need to get it lined out like the first load of walnut. Like I said I don't deal in cherry much, so I could use some advice.

[Part_Timer]

The 10"-14" would be ok but the 6" sounds like a clamp strike wating to happen.  I know I did it last weekend and a new blade to boot on a 8" log.  I made a new rule.  anything under 9" is firewood unless it is something special or I need it REAL bad.

Just my .02

tom

[Tom]

Small logs are not only hard to "dog" onto the mill but the wood is usually immature as well.   I draw the line at 9 inch tops.   

[beenthere]

Daren
Could you invite him to help you saw one of those small logs, so he can see that often it's one sawcut and carry the two slabs away. Even if you get a chance to make the second cut and get a 'board', he will see the relative amount of work for a likely low-quality piece of wood. Just a thought to help him understand your dilema.

[chet]

Daren
Could you invite him to help you saw one of those small logs, so he can see that often it's one sawcut and carry the two slabs away. Even if you get a chance to make the second cut and get a 'board', he will see the relative amount of work for a likely low-quality piece of wood. Just a thought to help him understand your dilema.

Beenthere,
I used dat same philosophy on my brother. Only I had him do da milling.  ;)  Da quality of da logs he brings now are MUCH better.  ;D

[Daren]

I am not so worried about my equipment, I built my own deck (manual mill). I can throw a 2x4 on and saw furring strips down to the last one. I sawed some smaller logs for others, catalpa, plum, resawed boards. I am just not to familiar with cherries properties. I know a small walnut for example about the time you saw the sap off you are into the pith, I just won't take them. My main market is guys looking for wide stuff 20"+, they can go anywhere and get 4" wide stock. I guess I should add it was cut today and he knows my top dollar is $.60 bft for cherry delivered (top dollar is 20"+) if the logs are straight and sound but small, it is less but close. I do need some cherry. I have a printed sheet with what I am looking for and what I pay I give to anyone who is looking to sell. He has it and my min. cherry was 10". I guess I will just have to deal with him,I gave him firewood price for the first load and he came back with some nice ones. I just didn't know what the cut off was for usable lumber in small cherry was.

[beenthere]

Daren
Given the 'other' side of your situation, sounds like you need to get them and find out what you will find inside them. You will be able to answer those questions directly. From your first description, sounded like you were looking for 'a way out'. From your second comeback, sounds like you want to get something out of them.

Cherry in this southern part of Wisconsin, is not very good no matter how big they seem to get. Its just poor quality. Don't know what quality you have growing there, but let us know how they look when opened up. 

Maybe take some on 'retainer' and say you will pay for what you can get from them.  Might work for both of you.

[DanG]

I guess it depends on how hungry you are, vs how hungry he is.  Tiny little logs can produce some really nice wood for small projects, such as boxes and lap desks.  I've been whacking up some cherry from the firewood pile on the table saw.  I'm cutting 2/4x1"x6" pieces and letting them drop in a bucket.  When I get enough, I'm gonna try my hand at making a parquet floor out of'em.  It's all in what you expect to get out of'em. ;)

[Daren]

beenthere, that is a discussion I had with the guy before he brought the first log. He asked how I paid. I told him I have a number of guys I do regular business with who let me pay on the tally, but I paid on the truck to new guys. The first load of nails or hollow logs would be thier last. He seemed cool with that, he said he wanted to supply my logs and could do it my way. So far I have paid per load just scaling (I have been busy sawing other stuff and not sawed too many of his logs).  I will see what he has and go from there, he knew what I was looking for. Like I said he will drop if I am gone  and let me pay next time, I guess I should try to work out the pay per tally deal with him.

[beenthere]

Sounds like a good plan. Do you scale on the Doyle scale?  That will be in your favor on the small ones, and if you deduct for crook, and sweep, and grade your logs, that will help too. 
If interested in the log grading, even a simple system like 3 clear faces = No. 1, 2 clear faces = No. 2, and 1 clear face = No 3, 0 clear faces = below grade (firewood price), could help you make some decisions along with the scaling. Try a few logs to see if you can see a difference in the yield of lumber between these grades.

[Ron Wenrich]

The biggest problem with those small logs is you get too much sapwood in the cherry.  I know cherry buyers that won't buy from some companies due to too much sapwood.  For most of the hardwoods, the color is in the heartwood. 

$.60 sounds a little cheap for cherry, especially that size.  That could be part of the reason you are low. 

[Fla._Deadheader]

Being as you use the wood, saw them little fellers into "Cants", 4 X 4 --3 X 3 for legs and such.

[mike_van]

My .02 - Cherry under  8" small end  goes in the firewood pile - under 10" if its crooked.  The sapwood on the cherry [especially young ones] is just to wide to make it worth it. I find the younger smaller wood to be more apt to warp, bow, etc.    Loads of knots too.    I sawed a lot of these when I was new at it, just isn't worth it.   Takes me as long to load, clamp, & figure a little log as a good one, and theres not much to show after sawing the small one.   Best I can say Darrin,  is try a few,  when you get done, you'll know if it was worth your time.   With 2.50 or 3.00 oil this winter, that small cherry will look good going into the stove. 8)

[pigman]

Being as you use the wood, saw them little fellers into "Cants", 4 X 4 --3 X 3 for legs and such.

I don't think that will work. :( I built a king size bed for a neighbor a few years ago. He furnished a good cherry tree to saw up for the bed. He also furnished  a 6in 30 ft cherry for the legs. I told him if I boxed the heart on the small cherry it would crack open like a ripe watermelon. The next year I showed him the " legs" and he said I had better use the good cherry for the legs. I guess I could have sawed the small log into boards and glued them back up after drying, but he wanted solid legs with no glue up. :

[SAW MILLER]

    I just finished sawin up a bunch of 8 inch cherry out of a load of firewood logs.I ended up with about 300 bd ft. but it took around 6 hours.Mostly 5 and 6 inch boards.If I can sell it for a dollar a foot thats 50 dollars an hour and  I paid 275.00 for the whole 10 ton of firewood logs.WE'll see how it turns out. :-\ :-\ :-\

[Daren]

I went ahead and took that little load of small cherry, it was not as bad as he made it sound. They were smallish, a couple were 8" top, but they where 19' long so I got a better log at the bottom. The were clear, out of 21 saw logs all but about 3 or 4 were clear 3 faces, about half 4 clear sides (he should have let them grow awhile). I started sawing on them this morning, the bigger ones are good. Talk about stress in the little ones, tons of it. I searched the archive and found a post by Tom that I am going to put to good use this afternoon. https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=683.0 I was sawing 4/4 on a 10' long cant and when I grabbed it in the middle to pull the board off it was 6/4. I sat down to think it over and saw the cant had raised 1" in the middle after that first one was pulled. I am open to other suggestion. These are small so flipping back and forth like Tom suggests will not yield much for me (all my sawing will be square up cuts). They just got cut yesterday, will letting them lay awhile help?

[Mike_Barcaskey]

the main mill I sell to will only take 10" and larger, prefers 12" as a minimum

I'll cut stuff down to 9" if I'm slow or it's something I want to mess with, But IMO 12" is about the minimum for your time involved

as for that .60 pbf ( I'm assuming that's logs delivered to the mill) I'm getting .75 pbf as a starting point and up to $1.00 for the nicest stuff (not veneer) and that's International 1/4 scale. If the mill wants to use Doyle, its my price x 1.7
if anything MY price is going up due to gas prices, the mills can cry all they want saying their price is going down, but now that I have another option (our mill) I'm not selling cheap. My labor's worth more and your's should be too.

.

[Frickman]

We go down to 10", 9" if it's really nice. In small diameter logs you have to cut shorter lengths because of the stress in the log. It is very difficult to saw uniform 4/4" lumber from a 9" or 10" cherry log 16' long. Poplar is not as hard, but cherry and the oaks have alot of natural stress in them.

With energy costs so high now many of the smaller logs we used to saw are going into firewood, sold both as log-length and cut and split. I can get about the same money out of a load of skinny sawlogs now as firewood delivered to a driveway than I can as the lumber sawn out of them. Locally we have a large demand for pallet cants but sometimes it just isn't worth making them from small logs.