Buying and selling logs

[ewoolsey]

do some of you ever buy walnut trees ect. by spitting it with the owner 50/50, you cut drag out in a pile and sell ?

 

[madhatte]

My "selling a walnut log" lesson: find a buyer first. Don't even think of selling until you have that base covered. A log is just a log until it's worth something to somebody. Not every log is worth more than firewood value, and, in fact, most yard trees aren't. Don't get your hopes up, nor the owner's. I leaned this all the very hard way. Fortunately, I didn't lose any friends in the process, but that's a matter of luck and not in any way a guarantee.

Also: geeze, why is it always walnut? I feel like the guy warning folks to stay away from Amway.

 

[ewoolsey]

there is good demand here $2.50 for lumber logs and up to $7 for 21" veneer, and we do have a saw mill if needed, i was asking if anybody else do this 50/50 with ower and come out good ? thats how the ower whats do it.

 

[lmbrman]

I have sold logs from my own land with an agreed percentage of mill pay, but I drove the truck and collected payment myself for a little higher percentage, just to keep track of the wood. I guess the way I worked it I paid the logger that percent, cause the wood was sold on my contract. I know of several loggers around here that pay a certain percent of mill price, so it is not uncommon here.

Yard trees seldom bring much money- not sure what you have, just sayin. However you sell, read up and learn to scale trees and/or logs and then you know better what you are selling. Good luck.

 

[Gologit]

On the 50/50 deal...try to figure out what your gross revenue is going to be for selling all the wood. Figure what your expenses will be. You should know what it's costing you to cut. Will you just cut and run or will you be responsible for brush piling and removal? How about ground remediation? Road building? Will you have to get more insurance to cover any injuries sustained while working? Who pays for hauling? There's more but that's enough to start with.
Subtract your costs from your half of the gross revenue. Add 10% for all the things you didn't figure when you were figuring your costs. Is there enough left for you out of the remainder? On a 50/50 deal I'd doubt it unless you're into some extremely high value wood.

If your revenue/cost isn't making sense, try negotiating a different split with the land owner.

 

[madhatte]

Figure what your expenses will be.

YES

And don't forget to factor in the value of your time! If you do all the work, 50% isn't 50%!

 

[bitzer]

How about 80/20? You're doing all the work and like Gologit said, there never is as much left over as all those dollar signs floating in your head led you to believe....

Nate you're right- Why does it always have to be ####ing walnut?!!

Honestly some mills could care less about walnut. Mine rarely works with it. Its all about selling it first.

 

[paccity]

low volume residential removals just wouldn't pay. 2to 3% of walnut removals we do will go to milling. but we leave that up to the customer usually . and that goes for about all species . sometimes we will help the owner sell it . but that just goes to help pay for the removal . if there's a good volume it get's somewhat profitable . there's a lot of walnut firewood around here. damn it takes me forever to type. ya what the last 3 gents said.

 

[Slamm]

I use to cut and skid for an Amish man that made a lot of money on Iowa walnuts, I've cut them in just about every county of Iowa, but now I hate walnuts, because just one walnut tree will waste more time than 100 white oaks. One of my personal examples below:

We are cutting skidding about 50-100 trees a day mostly red and white oaks and hickory. Life is good volume is good. Then we are told to shut down and have to meet with the land owner. We stop everything wait for the land owner and follow him to the far side of the property where we have never worked. He says he has a walnut that we have to negotiate over??????? So he walks us back along a powerline road on his place and points to a tree leaning over that some powerline guy says is a beautiful walnut. We look at the area of a little while from a distance and finally I speak up and I say, "What walnut?", landowner says, "That one leaning over." ....... I walk over to it, study the bark, study the leaves ............ "Uh, sir, this is a cottonwood just like these other 5-6 trees around it." things got a little tense after that, LOL. He thought I was lying, until I showed him it had that same bark and leaves as the other quite obvious cottonwood trees that were next to it. Finally we got to go back to work. Now we had been slaying 1,000's of board feet of veneer and grade white oaks a day, but this one walnut was going to make or break the deal for the landerowner, at this point, as a volume or production cutter and skidder I just hate them. Every walnut a landowner finds in a fence row with 5 strands of barbwire going through the middle of it requires an 1 hour conversation explaining why its less than worthless. They just drive me nuts.

Now if I'm paid to specifically cut walnuts then they are okay. We use to buy them in Iowa, Nebraska and Northern Missouri and Northern Illinois for $100-$800 per tree and mainly just bought, 10-70 trees per property. We sold the veneer and cut the lumber in a big amish saw mill. I got a nice percentage of the veneer and lumber profits, to own, move and operate the equipment and bonuses for finding and buying walnuts. It required a lot of hunting by road and even some pretty neat hunting techniques, but day in an day out, I'll take simple oaks and steady, drama-less volume over walnuts. I don't mind that I did it, but I wouldn't go back and do it again, I ended up breaking my leg riding bulls and leased out my equipment to them for about 1/2 a year and then brought back home and started working volume closer to home, much better for me and family.



The best walnuts are north of highway 70 running through Illinois and Missouri up into Iowa and Eastern Nebraska, there is a high population of them down around Joplin, but the landowners are all pretty savy to their worth and most every logger in that area has bugged them so much about them that they get pissed if you mention the word walnut to the landowners.

As to percentages the last contract that I saw the timber buyer make was 60% of the veneer goes to the landowner and 50% of grade goes to landowner and then landowner gets $100 per 1000 on the blocking. All parties seem to be happy with that arrangement.

Sam

 

[lmbrman]

should have asked right away- how much volume are we talking about here ?

 

[Guido Salvage]

The problem is unless you have a buyer waiting you will only encounter the hobby woodworker who is looking for 10bf a year to make some furniture.

 

[Gologit]

YES

And don't forget to factor in the value of your time! If you do all the work, 50% isn't 50%!

But...how you value your time and how someone else values it might be two different things. We don't mean to rain on your parade but a lot of us make our living logging or woodcutting and we're very aware of how little money there really is in it.

I'll do little side jobs like the one you're contemplating, usually in the winter when logging is slow. Generally I just hire out to fall and buck. I usually work for a set rate for the day and we get it clear right up front how many hours a day is. If the landowner wants the brush piled, or the wood cut into firewood lengths, or anything else beyond straight falling and bucking, the price goes up accordingly. If I'm going to get quite a bit of work on a fairly steady basis from the same person I might drop my price. A little. By the same token, if the landowner is a PITA and is constantly changing his mind about what he wants done I factor in an aggravation surcharge.

Madhatte said it right...50/50 isn't really 50/50.

 

[Gologit]

The problem is unless you have a buyer waiting you will only encounter the hobby woodworker who is looking for 10bf a year to make some furniture.

This is true also. The wood is worth only what someone will pay for it. No a nickle more. If you're selling to a mill or a timber buyer or a broker, it's all the same. They'll get the wood from you just as cheaply as they can. A lot of them are absolute geniuses at figuring just how much to pay for timber to keep you going, but not enough for you to get really ahead. They like to keep the logger a little hungry and they're really good at it, too. Most of them won't out and out cheat you or rob you because they need you out there producing wood for them. What they will do is work every advantage they can to keep from paying you any more than they have to.

It's always been that way and I don't see it changing any time soon. Logging or firewooding...it's the same. It's about production and production means working as efficiently as you can. No extra moves, no extra handling, watch every nickle and know right to the penny how much it's costing you to work. Otherwise you might as well get a job at Burger King lined up...'cause you won't be in the wood business too long.

 

[bitzer]

I use to cut and skid for an Amish man that made a lot of money on Iowa walnuts, I've cut them in just about every county of Iowa, but now I hate walnuts, because just one walnut tree will waste more time than 100 white oaks.
Sam

The job I'm cutting right now had all of the walnut cut before I got there. My mill was not interested enough to pull the trigger on the price they wanted so someone else bought it and cut it. To me it looks like a lot of ####ing around and does not look good from a wood utilization standpoint. Lots of little chunks cut and all the tops. That and I really enjoying cutting/throwing their tops off of some of my timber.

Sam, how many guys do you have on your crew on a regular basis?

 

[Slamm]

Sam, how many guys do you have on your crew on a regular basis?

Bitzer,

It varies, based on when I can get "my guys" to come work. Right now I've got two of the younger guys 18 years old, both good skidder drivers and one can cut pretty good and is fast, but I won't let him cut my recent job, because its a little technical and higher quality as the trees need to be felled rather precisely, as its my friends land and I want it looking good. Some months I can get upwards of 6 guys and sometimes its just me, myself and I. If I really needed two more to come down they can come, but I'm going to just try it with these two for now.

I'm pretty flexible and just go with the flow, we work hard when it works out that we can and do something else when it doesn't work out.

My best cutter Bert is now working for the Railroad, so he comes and cuts on weekends or takes vacation and comes and slaughters a bunch. I have three skidders so at times I don't mind if the cutters get way ahead, cause we can reel them in pretty fast. For the big volume bottoms ground, I need to get an excavator and bucksaw as we bottle neck in the marking and bucking up area.

Sam