Lumber ? What would you do?

[Suade907]

Hi guys, I've been a lurker here for a while awaiting the day I have enough cash saved up for a shopbot. I currently route on a less than stellar cnc but we do what we can.

My question is my family recently purchased over 200 acres of prime forest, untouched for over 40 years. Unfortunately it's on a medium grade mountain where access is not the easiest. We are considering lumbering the larger trees to help pay for the land. We received a few estimates for having the trees lumbered. They seem to be all over the place. We have a lot of prime wood like Maple and Ash.

My question was what would you guys do if you had access to wood like this. We are trying to get ideas. We even considered trying to learn how to lumber them ourselves. With the cost of wood these days it seems they are trying to rob us for sure.

Thanks in advance

[blackhawk]

I would post your question on woodweb.com. That website has a forum for forestry and sawmilling. It also has a ton of information on the subject.

[myxpykalix]

It has been my experience with a friend who owns a sawmill and another who owns 600 acres of trees, the thing that has the least value is the tree itself! I find that crazy but the value of a log is far less then the value of harvested wood.
Regardless of what you do, do not let anyone "clearcut" your wood because they will just chop everything down. Do selective cutting. It might even do to have an expert like an arborist(?) come in and walk thru to identfy all the trees that could be cut down in order to maintain the rest to maturity.

If you want to harvest them yourself it would require a substantial investment in a sawmill (even portable) along with all the support equipment like a big tractor or front end loader to move the logs.

Then you have to cut and sticker your material and either wait for it to air dry or get a kiln.

So I would think you would have to look at the price per tree you are offered then seperately figure out how much yield you could get from each tree (how many board feet and multiply that by the going wholesale rate) to get the value.
Subtract the per tree value from the wholesale board foot value to find the difference. Find out the cost for all the hardware to do the work (bandsaw mill, front end loader, labor,insuranceect) and figure that cost.

I think the difference between what you make outright selling the logs to a third party and what you would make after all expenses is not going to be that much. In other words, you're not giving away a fortune (depending on their offer).
It is hard heavy and dangerous work. I did it for a while with a friend and on more then one occassion a tree went in a different direction then we planned when cutting.
There are outfits that will come in with their own equipment and crews and harvest for you and split the yield. You will need to do some good research and ask outsiders who will not be able to get this job so you could get an honest objective idea of costs and values so you could get a honest evaluation .:D

[zeykr]

Contact your state forestry commission or equivalent and get names of certified foresters in your area. The forester will cruise your timber, tell you approximate value, and work with harvesters/mills to get you the best price they can, mark the tress to cut, and monitor the timber sale. Through their contacts, they can usually make you more than their services cost and can leave you with a viable forest that can be harvested again in the future. They can also help you with plans to manage your forest in the future and tell you if now is the time to do a timber sale or if you should wait for prices to go up.

[Suade907]

Ok thanks a bunch guys I'll be looking into all these options.

[Brady Watson]

Contact your state forestry commission or equivalent and get names of certified foresters in your area. The forester will cruise your timber, tell you approximate value, and work with harvesters/mills to get you the best price they can, mark the tress to cut, and monitor the timber sale. Through their contacts, they can usually make you more than their services cost and can leave you with a viable forest that can be harvested again in the future. They can also help you with plans to manage your forest in the future and tell you if now is the time to do a timber sale or if you should wait for prices to go up.

X2 -Now that you have some land, you also have a responsibility to soil and water conservation. It's healthy to thin out old growth, but this should be done by a pro.

-B

[myxpykalix]

Ken said what i couldn't think of, so i said arborist. But he is correct as to who to call. The forestry service has no profit motive and would see that it managed and not raped. The only thing is the regulations when you get the govt involved. You might want to wait till after the election and hopefully with a new administration some of the crazy regulations will be repealed.

I'm glad we have so many smart guys here!:rolleyes:

[bcondon]

You did not say where the land is which is critically important. I have a friend who was a steel welder on high rises and bridges and took a "safer" job as a logger.

He is in Maine and the wood price has dropped through the floor because every yahoo with a chain saw and pickup truck has been cutting wood this year and delivering theior loads to the mills. The mill yards are FULL.

So my friend has 100 year old white cedar and he is working with a small 6 person mill. He cuts the logs, bandsaw mills them to a thickness, delivers the saw dust to pellet mills, delivers any shavings to local farms for animal bedding and not one ounce is wasted... It all makes money.

He owns his chainsaws, a medium tractor he bought used, a 1 ton truck, he made a log carrier for the wood to pick up and haul logs (all hydraulic) and a bulldozer to cut in roads and keep damage to a minimum.

He works damn hard and in the end sells rough 1x material (wet)for about 1.25/BFT

It is not an easy living but he doesn't have a boss up his backside.

The other problem you run into is that in Maine, people WORK TO LIVE, not like in Massachusetts where the LIVE TO WORK. This means that he needs to work with others that simply don't have his drive. The band saw mill owner will on cut 200 BFT per day with his $40K machine because he does not need more that $1K per week to meet his debts so 2-3 hours a day is all he gets...


The key to your question is what markets are available to you? Maple and
Ash are pretty common. DO you want to process the wood? My friend made a kiln out of a propane furnace and a refrigerator trailer. It works well enough. He has a 24" planer from Grizley Industrial, blower and trailer to collect shavings...

Do you have a large center that woodworkers live. Do you have a garage that you could sell to woodworkers because they want to pick over the materials BUT they think because you have a mill and it is all so cheap, that they should get the materials for $0.75 per board foot.

Just some crazy random thoughts. I looked at working with my friend and also buy a shingle mill to make house shingles and quickly found that the market is saturated by a couple of big boys and the REAL distribution chain (where you could actually make a living) only goes through them and the lumber yards will not risk going with another vendor even if they are cheaper.

Let us know what you are thinking. I have been thing about this for 3-4 years and have some very knowledgable friends in the wood industry.

Good Luck

Bob Condon

[roney c]

" You might want to wait till after the election and hopefully with a new administration some of the crazy regulations will be repealed."

Jack, really? There are probably 6000 political forums on the Internet, the Shopbot forum is not one of them. Just pointing out the obvious.*

[myxpykalix]

rodney.i don't think it's political to point out the truth is it? The overburdensome regulations put into place by this administration especially on the environmental front may make it not worth harvesting at this time.
So I view it as a statement of fact rather then a biased political view:eek:

But if you really want to know how i feel about them....:rolleyes:

[harryball]

Yep, make use of the forestry service and call your local NRCS office and ask for a rep to come visit you. http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/nac

We work with people in these agencies (granted on a different topic) and I find most of them to be stand up folks.

I don't know where your land is located, but rather than managing it yourself to produce lumber, another option is leasing the land for various uses from hunting to timber. If you place it in conservation the taxes will be cheap, but look closely at the type of conservation you choose and what uses would later be disallowed.

And of course... put up a few bat houses!

Good luck!

/RB

[Suade907]

The land is in Northern Michigan. Thanks for all the good info. Keep it coming.

[bruce_taylor]

Everyone has a purpose, if you want to do it yourself then you can alot depends on what your time is worth to you, if you have a minimum wage job then making $30 an hour is great if your a skilled craftsmen and make $50 an hour then it isn't. If I was in your place I would find someone in the business that I felt I could work with an let them do what they do to your liking. Lumbering is HARD HARD work and can be DANGEROUS. Sound like with your win fall you'll be on your way to a more robust cnc in no time. Make sure you can enjoy the technology, I make finished products and do ok I would not want to start at cutting the tree down and go all the way through for sure.