Is it common to sell KD lumber by gross tally?

Stephen1 · February 11, 2025, 08:57:42 AM

BH as my son likes to say when I make that comment about common sense....
'Not everyone's comment sense is the same as yours'. or
there are a 1000 ways to do something to get the same result.
The FF has really gave me some more thought on the hardwood lumber Buisness and as always I learn s much here. I went and measure my lHW lumber thickness yesterday on a bunch of KD lumber on the racks. I am a lot closer to the 5/4 mark than I thought, within a 16" th on all the samples. That's great as I saw using the hardwood scale on my WM.
Where am I missing out is the width. All my lumber is 1/4 to 1/2" narrower than what I take off the mill green. I really need to rethink my sawing of lets say 6" boards, should I be sawing 63/8" , but if I do that then that screws up my 48" wide green bundles for the kiln.
What do others do?

blackhawk · February 11, 2025, 09:03:52 AM

Stephen - Yes, there could be a 1000 ways to get the same result, but I like to choose the simplest way.

customsawyer · February 11, 2025, 12:55:15 PM

The point that has been made here several times, is that isn't always the simplest way for some mills. Especially when they use tags with bar codes and scanners. That pack came off the mill at 1000 bf and a tag is applied. Now every time that pack goes to the next step all they have to do is scan the tag. Sometimes it will be scanned automatically. This lets them track it through the entire process. With some of these big mills sawing over a million bf per day, they can't scan every single board. Right now they are operating on such tight profit margins that many are dropping out because their 15 year old equipment isn't efficient enough. Two big mills have closed just down the road from me. Each one was sawing over 800M bf per day. Both were losing over 80K bucks a week. We can discuss it until the cows come home but it isn't going to change.

blackhawk · February 11, 2025, 01:52:18 PM

The big mills wouldn't have to scan or measure every board after kiln drying. They are already applying a % to the volume loss due to shrinkage after the kiln. They just apply that same % to their selling price. There is no loss of value in that pack of lumber. Sure, if you look only at the price per bf it appears higher, but that price is multiplied by 900 bf instead of 1000 bf, for example. So the total value of that bundle of lumber is the same whether it is sold by gross or net tally. I agree that I can't change those mills that sell by gross. The problem is gross tally can trickle all the way down to the retail level as Yellowhammer mentioned in one of his posts. If everyone would sell at net tally, it is a level playing field for all parties without multiplying quantities, making assumptions and asking questions. That is my point and I assume that the National Conference and NHLA was trying to accomplish the same thing.

Cedarman · February 11, 2025, 07:54:18 PM

Now that we have discussed this at length, what is a good plan to make everyone conform to the same standard?
I think that is tilting at windmills.
We can grumble, but I don't think we can solve the issue.
Some things in life are just aggravating. Anyone try to change their spouse?