Custom sawing

[Magicman]

Hydraulic sawmills are more adapt toward production while manual sawmills may need to look more toward niche markets.  There is a definite need for both. 

[Peter Drouin]

Think about this also.....
A customer may say he gets his lumber sawn by me because I have fair prices because the guy down the road is charging way to much.

We all need to take this into consideration.....The 'Ol Goat has a hydraulic mill, I can saw some good Pine siding boards and charge the customer 25 cents a board foot for sawing his Pine. Yep...I'm making money at a fair price.

Now the guy down the road that customers thinks his prices are too high.....well he has a mill with NO hydraulics or he may have a manuel mill.
This guy is charging 40 cents a BF to saw customers lumber. He has to because of his extra labor.

Customers hardly ever, even think about the mill.....but go only on pricing.....thus the guy down the road with no hydraulics or a manuel mill gets a bad rap for charging to much when in reality he is charging a fair price based on his LABOR.

Do Y'all see what I'm talking about? So back to what Cedarman asked.....What is ripping off and what is over charging? I think if you're charging a fair price based your labor.....then unfortunately your judged by customers.

Yes , I had a lt40 with hydraulics with  a 24 horse. And at .25 a BF money for me was ok. But I wanted more ;D
That's why I got the super with the 51 horse Cat. Now [In 2008] at .25 a BF I did well  ;D  So this year I went up,now it's .25 here and .30 on the road [ soft wood]
So I guess what I'm saying is ,I could go up with the price or cut more wood a day. So the price was the same , But Production went up with the super.

[red oaks lumber]

right on pete!!
there are times I believe breaking even or losing on a job will come back to you with alot more work, a customer if they are a bigger player will have you do a sampling, kinda an audtion to see how you handle tough situations. i guess i'm saying things  arent always taken at face value.
before you turn down a job, think about the ramifications long term, the customer you turned down unless the reason is very obvious, will tell everybody an anybody he can, saying how so in so turned me down.how much lost money is that guy costing you?sad fact in life.
we have probably generated over 100k from initial jobs most would have turned down.
sadly there will be times (if your fulltime) you will do work because its cash flow :(

[Peter Drouin]

Thanks red oaks
Just like some guys here think I sell too low on some things. But it gets the eye of customers. Just like a man want's a price on five 8x8x40' timbers.
I gave him a good price of 2.00 a BF for them as long as I get the whole timber frame. See he thought the long stuff was going to be a lot of money,  I pay the same BF price for 8' or 40' log. Now I have to price the whole thing. All w pine.
I know I can cut the 8x8s in a day. Another call today for four 28' 8x10 w pine to restore an old barn 2.00 a BF. Then boards a lot of them :D
With the 34' trailer I got last year to move them is easy. I don't deliver for free. :D :D ;D

[BBTom]

I charge $0.40 board foot when they bring me the logs and want 1x or 2x material.  If I am on the road or sawing beams or heavy material, I charge $75/hour.  There is a $200 minimum charge if I am on the road.  $75/hr does not make me rich, but it does pay the bills.  If the customer has good logs and good help, I can keep the blade biting wood and he gets a good deal.  If he has small logs and poor help (or no help), he pays quite a bit on a bdft basis and I still pay the bills. 

I used to saw by the bdft, but got beat too many times by little logs or lazy help, that I had to change.  When I explain to a new customer, they understand and most always have good help and have the logs ready to roll up to the mill.  Changing to the hourly pay has made my life much easier. 

example - Sawing nice ash, oak and cherry logs, all sawn at 1 1/8" random width.  A customer got about 4000 bdft sawn in 2 short days for $1100.  He got good hardwood sawn for about $0.275/bdft.  All I had to do was push buttons because he had lots of help.  He got a good deal on sawing, we were both happy.  His kiln drying bill will be more than his sawing bill.

I think there are too many variables that you cannot control when sawing on the road.  I need to make a living, so I leave the customer take the burden of his variables, because they are his to control.

[Small Slick]

How much to charge that's always an interesting question.

I think a business should charge what the market will bear. Keeping in mind that some bad jobs might lead to great jobs in the future. Also just because a great margin can be made on a job that doesn't mean you should abuse an opportunity.

It would not make any sense to build a great business with outstanding efficiency an develop your employees to be great and then treat your business as if it were average. If you have the things mentioned above and you worked hourly you end up doing a lot of work for less than you should.

To me profit based on percentage of gross is very misleading. For example everyone loves to hate big oil. They made fill in the blank billion dollars. However very few people hate Google or cell phone companies or ebay. Big oil makes a much smaller percent profit.

Charge what the market will bear. You will still make some and loose some.

John.

[terrifictimbersllc]

BBTom describes my last several years experiences of portable sawing exactly.  I presently charge hourly at $70 for bandsawing, but also keep track of BF as I saw.  Ready nice logs, good help, easy sawing instructions and the customer gets a great deal.  Why shouldn't he, if he has nice logs, and goes to the trouble of preparing them and having helpers and often a machine ready. Sometimes I wonder if I should be charging more or set a minimum BF floor, especially when I leave stacks of lumber often for as little as 25 cents a BF.  I had one farmer who set up things so well it was 19 cents for a day of mostly 2x, and a second for 24 cents that was mostly 1x.   But when I reckon what his additional costs are and whether I would want to try to provide the same support myself to try to do better, forget it.  A lot of the efficiency comes from nice logs arranged properly and I'm not going to take control of those things. When I show up and the logs are not cut to length, half of the pile on the other side of a stump, some over 20 ft, and the customer says "whatever you think you can get out of it", that's what we do, at the hourly rate.

[thecfarm]

terrifictimbersllc,that farmer was saying,show me the money. He could see how having things ready and the way you wanted it was going to save him money. If you charge by the bf,why bother having things ready?But I can see the bf charge works and the hourly rate works.

[Cedarman]

One area of concern I have with sawing big and long at a low rate is that you may be stuck with that price when a customer only needs the big and long.  If you have 2 prices, one for when you get a big job and another for when it is just the big and long, it can cause people to think you are playing games. I point this out as another thing to think about when pricing.  Not saying which is right way to go, but to be sure to think through it.
We are not into custom sawing, but sawing custom lumber out of our logs.
30 years ago we did custom sawing, so I know the issues that you guys have.  They haven't changed.

[Magicman]

Yup, if you always charge on a "one size fits all" (either hourly or bf rate) and do not assess each type of sawing job, at one time or the other you could either work/saw too cheap or leave money on the table.  That is not taking advantage of the customer, and it is also not inadvertently giving the customer any advantage.  It's just business and being fair to both you and the customer.

[creekrunner]

MM, I agree with your statement.. it's hard to stick to one rule, flexibility is the key i think. Keeps you employed!
It's good to get so many responses to a post and be able to see what you all charge, makes life a little easier for us beginners to sort out what we may or may not need to do.
Thanks all!!!  I certainly appreciate this board!!

[Dave Shepard]

When I do custom saw, it is hourly. It isn't my responsibility to make sure the customer has optimized the material flow. I do try to educate them as to the best way to save time, but if I get nasty, twisted, stubby logs, then I am not being penalized for it. I have offered to cut on a board foot rate, but all of my terms would have to be met. Truckload quantities (4,000 ft+), no short logs, logs to be properly manufactured, no junk, not dipped in mud like a fudgesicle, etc. :D Basically, if you want good productivity, then you need to run the show like a commercial mill does. There is a reason they have specs, it's the only way to be efficient. Of course, this is where the small custom guys have their niche by sawing the odd ball stuff. There are a lot of good short logs that I see that would be a shame to cut into firewood, like a 6' long 24" super clear cherry log, but someone has to want to spend a little extra to get it sawn.

[backwoods sawyer]

I based my hourly rate off my average bft production over a long period of time. When Little Jo jioned the team the production went up considerably (I must have been loafing :) so I rased the rate from $60 hr to $75 hr.

Even at $75 hr the other day I milled for a long time customer that prefers the hourly rate, as he is very efficiant oriented. At the end of the day his cost for a stack of 1x12's was 1/2 my bft rate at less then $.15 bft.

Yesterdays milling was charged at $.30 bft, if it had been hourly it would have worked out to be $80 hr and these were trees layed down when we arrived and no equipment on site and four saw changes due to metal-broken blades.

Tracking production numbers over time gives you an average to work from when setting and adjusting rates. In 8 years I have only adjusted my hourly rate once and bft rate has not changed, I have adjusted travel cost a few times over the years with fuel cost being a veriable there.

[Peter Drouin]

One area of concern I have with sawing big and long at a low rate is that you may be stuck with that price when a customer only needs the big and long.  If you have 2 prices, one for when you get a big job and another for when it is just the big and long, it can cause people to think you are playing games. I point this out as another thing to think about when pricing.  Not saying which is right way to go, but to be sure to think through it.
We are not into custom sawing, but sawing custom lumber out of our logs.
30 years ago we did custom sawing, so I know the issues that you guys have.  They haven't changed.

[WDH]

like a 6' long 24" super clear cherry log

Where is it?  I might want to buy it  ;D.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

like a 6' long 24" super clear cherry log

Where is it?  I might want to buy it  ;D.

;D