How big is too big

[longtime lurker]

Just trying to get a feel for a couple numbers here:

Mill closures... ignore pulp etc....  just regular mills. What size tends to close up? Big guys get bigger and the little guys battle through and its mostly the ones in the middle that die. Around your area what size operation would that be?

Mills cutting grade hardwood or with grade hardwood as a major part of their production: what kind of size would that be? Mostly here grade mills tend to be smaller...  rarely over about 2 MMBF and often only half that size.

Just curious, trying to work a few things out in my head. I'll come back with the what and why later if i can get it to make sense.

Thanks guys
John

[YellowHammer]

There are three big mills pretty close to me, all do mostly hardwood with a touch of pine.  They buy any grade of logs from sawlogs to veneer.  They produce crossties to FAS lumber, pallet stock to flooring.  They broker as well as sell logs.  Two have kilns, one does not.  Two produce in the range of 2.5 million bdft per year, mostly selling domestically, one is almost total export, in batches of about 6 million bdft per year.  There are others within a hundred miles or so, all in that range or bigger.  I don't know of any decent sized mill that has gone out of business around here.

Remember, these numbers are just ones I get in casual conversation with their owners and employees.  

[moodnacreek]

In the nineties sawmills died like flies.  In a 10 year period probably 60 percent disappeared, almost all small to medium. There is rarely an auction these days. The big mills, northwest by 200 miles of me got bigger and I think 5 of them are owned by one company. The north south interstate highway here goes straight to Montreal with flatbed back hauls of logs from the n.e. states. There are log buyers around also. Plenty of wood and buyers but no sawmills.  People who see my stickerd  lumber piles from the road think it is fence panels.  The game warden stopped the other day to see what I was burning and was concerned about all the piles of 'pallets'. Time marches on.

[Al_Smith]

It's a regional thing .There is one log buyer who gets premium hardwood logs from throughout the midwestern states .That's all sold by job lots by auction most of it shipped to Asian countries .They are about 6 miles from me .

Another small hardwood mill is 6 miles the other direction .They aren't interested in logs unless they do the falling and recovery.They will pick up logs but they won't pay for them .From what I've seen they are typical midwestern  stuff at maybe 2 to 3 feet range rarely 4 foot .I think their break down saw could handle 4 footers it's just there aren't too many of them to be had . 

[thecfarm]

I have a big pallet mill about 15 minutes from me,a small sawmill about 10 minutes from me,he sells lumber full time. Than there is a big white pine mill,Irving,which I sell too. They use to buy anything. Yes they might of resold the hardwood logs,but I could get rid of 10 hardwood logs. Very important when one is cutting at a very small scale. Than there is another big sawmill about a hour from me,I think another softwood mill.

[longtime lurker]

The Asian log buyers are here too, and they're changing the face of the industry. Doesnt really worry me at this point but some of the bigger mills to the south are squealing about log prices being too high for them. Any more slide in the Aussie $ and they're going to really get something to squeal about.

The m3 to BF calculations maybe throw things a bit because of the lack of any log scale on cubes... i kinda think tons are maybe a better measure because as the wood gets heavier the saw cuts slower... seems a ton of pine takes about the same time and effort to saw as a ton of hardwood even though the pile of pine logs is bigger. I dont see enough pine to call it a rule of thumb but my gut tells me maybe its not too far out. Thoughts there?.. most you guys run across more pine a week than i will this year.

[Al_Smith]

The only pine in these parts are yard trees .They are not native in this part of Ohio 

[moodnacreek]

We are pine poor in orange co. , clay soil.  To the north and south, where you start to see a little sand or gravel, there is pine. This is red oak country .