Where do you "draw the line" on quartersawn vs rift sawn?

[DonW]

These comment about picky people taking the best and leaving the worst make me curious. As a sawyer, how long can you be happy with a repetition of this behavior by a single customer? Or is it a standard business model with everything built in. Personally, and partly to maintain good relations, I have generally made every effort to buy wood by stems. Variation within stems can mostly be satisfactorily accounted for in the work.

[WDH]

I price my wood with a premium on the wide boards. They cherrypick the wide boards, but they pay more. 

[scsmith42]

That is some NICE wood.

Gotta love “Robert’s Reverse Roll”!

[scsmith42]

These comment about picky people taking the best and leaving the worst make me curious. As a sawyer, how long can you be happy with a repetition of this behavior by a single customer? Or is it a standard business model with everything built in. Personally, and partly to maintain good relations, I have generally made every effort to buy wood by stems. Variation within stems can mostly be satisfactorily accounted for in the work.

We increase the price in 2” increments when the boards exceed 8” width. 

[scsmith42]

 @scsmith42 how big was that log to get such wide, quarter sawn boards.

That particular one would have been in the 36”-40” range.

[YellowHammer]

There is just a look of full fleck that speaks of RRQS, and it’s a best seller for us, also, in both red and white oak.  

Picky customers are fine.  I increase price with width, also.  

Having picky customers is our business model.  One of the best compliments I’ve gotten was an instructor from a local woodworking club and school, and I told him he was welcome to high grade and handpick through our lumber.  He said “I don’t need to, it all looks the same, perfect.”

[Ianab]

These comment about picky people taking the best and leaving the worst make me curious. As a sawyer, how long can you be happy with a repetition of this behavior by a single customer? Or is it a standard business model with everything built in. Personally, and partly to maintain good relations, I have generally made every effort to buy wood by stems. Variation within stems can mostly be satisfactorily accounted for in the work.

I get your point, when you saw a log, you get various grades of boards from it. Usually from "firewood" to FAS or in the case of quarter sawed, "premium" wide and figured boards.  I mill my own logs for woodworking, so I understand about "log run" grade. The good, the bad and the ugly in one big pile. You sort through it and find uses for it, even if some ends up keeping you warm. But in retail, these are generally not sold to the same person. One customer wants premium boards for a high end project, next guy wants fence boards.  
So you sort the "premium" boards into that stack for the fussy customers that are willing to pay extra. The "regular" stack is all at least up to grade, and regular price. The "junk" goes over there in the "2nd's" stack, at a discount, for the bargain hunters and fence builders to sort though.    
Adjust the prices to suit the demand, making sure you are making a profit on the overall log, even if the low grade ends up technically below cost as pallet wood, that averages out with the premium stuff.  

[customsawyer]

The way I fix the high grade pickers is to have the middle of my store full of pallets of slabs. This way it is aggravating for them to sort all of the boards. If it is someone that is getting a bunch of wood I can move the pallets with the forklift in about 10 minutes.
Scott them boards sure is purdy.