14-year-old NEEDS advice for reaching out to sell at local hardware stores

[TheJollyLogger]

I think the first thing we need to figure out is your max output... how many cords do you have cut? How many split? How many can you produce a week? There's no need to market larger than your max output. From what you have described, a couple good Craigslist customers could sell you out, at retail prices. At your current production, that is your most profit.

 

[user 188535]

I think the first thing we need to figure out is your max output... how many cords do you have cut? How many split? How many can you produce a week? There's no need to market larger than your max output. From what you have described, a couple good Craigslist customers could sell you out, at retail prices. At your current production, that is your most profit.

I will only supply 2 stores at a time. One of the super small buyers ( A small hardware store ) and a regular hardware store. I can't do any more than that. My normal output is a face cord a week IF I have wood to split. I can't supply 5 hardware stores and therefore need help with how to turn some people down. Unless I get one of the machines below there ain't no way that I can supply 5 stores. It seems like some firewood companies come from super expensive machines instead of from nothing like me. I just hope my YouTube explodes and I can get some sponsors like Eastonmade or Japa to give me free stuff.
https://www.metsamachines.com/product/japa-315-firewood-processor/
https://www.eastonmadewoodsplitters...age=Eastonmade-ULTRA-Wood-Splitter-p297621141
https://www.eastonmadewoodsplitters...page=Eastonmade-5-11-Wood-Splitter-p297621138

 

[user 188535]

I think the first thing we need to figure out is your max output... how many cords do you have cut? How many split? How many can you produce a week? There's no need to market larger than your max output. From what you have described, a couple good Craigslist customers could sell you out, at retail prices. At your current production, that is your most profit.

My parents won't let me put an ad on Facebook marketplace due to safety concerns. However, considering the fact I live near DC, I can't blame them much considering the fact that some of the scumbags from DC will even steal what is bolted to the ground.

 

[Sidecarflip]

My retired buddy just has 2 gas powered splitters, one for him and one for his part time employee and they cut all the saw logs with a couple Stihl gas saws with the bars marked at 14" He does have a Case extenda hoe and I made a grapple for the business end so he can move the logs around. Keeps it real simple and deliver's his wood bundles in his pickup truck. He spends the fall and winter building up his stock and then sells out in the summer. Just sold him my MS290. He's cheap like me. Buys his chain in bulk rolls and grinds his own as well. Just like me.

Nice to dream big but start small and work up.

 

[composter]

Again, I admire your grit and goals. The wholesale to stores means the most volume at a lowest price. Can you do large volume for a long time? Solar kilns are a good idea, but if you need the USDA certification, better check directly with them, as i understand they require documentation of temperatures and the time they are held. I don't think a small solar kiln can produce the volume you will need. I'd aim for higher end customers that will pay top dollar for your dry wood, and pick it up from you. I understand you have a self serve stand, and that
is a good start, but I think you need to have hours when you will be there and load for folks: provide plastic to protect trunks or SUV's and the muscle and the customer stays clean and unstressed. Doing this, we've sold $1k on a weekend, and we're only 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico!
To buy a splitter (a no-brainer in my book), you need to generate cash, and getting an Avant requires a LOT of that cash! Good luck, but remember, it is the amount of money you can generate from an hour of work that is critical.

 

[user 188535]

Again, I admire your grit and goals. The wholesale to stores means the most volume at a lowest price. Can you do large volume for a long time? Solar kilns are a good idea, but if you need the USDA certification, better check directly with them, as i understand they require documentation of temperatures and the time they are held. I don't think a small solar kiln can produce the volume you will need. I'd aim for higher end customers that will pay top dollar for your dry wood, and pick it up from you. I understand you have a self serve stand, and that
is a good start, but I think you need to have hours when you will be there and load for folks: provide plastic to protect trunks or SUV's and the muscle and the customer stays clean and unstressed. Doing this, we've sold $1k on a weekend, and we're only 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico!
To buy a splitter (a no-brainer in my book), you need to generate cash, and getting an Avant requires a LOT of that cash! Good luck, but remember, it is the amount of money you can generate from an hour of work that is critical.

Yep. I will be renting a splitter this week. I really want an Eastonmade Ultra. I also have a Shark Tank idea for a wood subscription service but that's a whole other thing.

 

[unclemoustache]

Dang.
Insurance, kiln drying, USDA certification, business license, bla bla.
Sounds like big city folk who have no business burning wood.

Here in Smalltown USA, people don’t care about that. If you have a good product and you can both make money, it’s a go.
A local phone store near me hires minors to fix phones and other local businesses have their minor kids helping in the stores.

Most people are more interested in helping youngsters than following annoying regs.

Go to the stores and ask for the owner/manager. Talk to them AND give them the flyer. Do not give the flyer to an employee to give to the manager. You do the talking.

Bugs:
Do your best to keep it bug free, but don’t bother with a kiln or heat treatment. I usually spray each face cord after it’s stacked and then leave it. If I see a buggy piece when bundling, I throw it onto my personal pile.

But it’s firewood. It will likely have bugs. Most people know that. Most firewood sits outside the store anyway.

Just make sure it’s dry. Get a cheap moisture meter, and split a piece of wood to check the internal level. Under 15% is good for firewood.

For bundles, I recommend doing silver maple, pine, and other softer woods. Dries fast, splits easy (usually), and burns well. Make the splits a bit smaller.

For heating wood, that sells by the cord. Use oak, hickory, ash, etc and other dense woods. Make the splits bigger, and dry for AT LEAST one year, two for oak and other denser kinds.

 

[user 188535]

Dang.
Insurance, kiln drying, USDA certification, business license, bla bla.
Sounds like big city folk who have no business burning wood.

Here in Smalltown USA, people don’t care about that. If you have a good product and you can both make money, it’s a go.
A local phone store near me hires minors to fix phones and other local businesses have their minor kids helping in the stores.

Most people are more interested in helping youngsters than following annoying regs.

Go to the stores and ask for the owner/manager. Talk to them AND give them the flyer. Do not give the flyer to an employee to give to the manager. You do the talking.

Bugs:
Do your best to keep it bug free, but don’t bother with a kiln or heat treatment. I usually spray each face cord after it’s stacked and then leave it. If I see a buggy piece when bundling, I throw it onto my personal pile.

But it’s firewood. It will likely have bugs. Most people know that. Most firewood sits outside the store anyway.

Just make sure it’s dry. Get a cheap moisture meter, and split a piece of wood to check the internal level. Under 15% is good for firewood.

For bundles, I recommend doing silver maple, pine, and other softer woods. Dries fast, splits easy (usually), and burns well. Make the splits a bit smaller.

For heating wood, that sells by the cord. Use oak, hickory, ash, etc and other dense woods. Make the splits bigger, and dry for AT LEAST one year, two for oak and other denser kinds.

Yep. None of the hardware stores care about that dumb stuff, in fact, not even taxes. I will be using the money to save for an electric saw for carving.

 

[user 188535]

Dang.
Insurance, kiln drying, USDA certification, business license, bla bla.
Sounds like big city folk who have no business burning wood.

Here in Smalltown USA, people don’t care about that. If you have a good product and you can both make money, it’s a go.
A local phone store near me hires minors to fix phones and other local businesses have their minor kids helping in the stores.

Most people are more interested in helping youngsters than following annoying regs.

Go to the stores and ask for the owner/manager. Talk to them AND give them the flyer. Do not give the flyer to an employee to give to the manager. You do the talking.

Bugs:
Do your best to keep it bug free, but don’t bother with a kiln or heat treatment. I usually spray each face cord after it’s stacked and then leave it. If I see a buggy piece when bundling, I throw it onto my personal pile.

But it’s firewood. It will likely have bugs. Most people know that. Most firewood sits outside the store anyway.

Just make sure it’s dry. Get a cheap moisture meter, and split a piece of wood to check the internal level. Under 15% is good for firewood.

For bundles, I recommend doing silver maple, pine, and other softer woods. Dries fast, splits easy (usually), and burns well. Make the splits a bit smaller.

For heating wood, that sells by the cord. Use oak, hickory, ash, etc and other dense woods. Make the splits bigger, and dry for AT LEAST one year, two for oak and other denser kinds.

or using it to buy a Eliet project chipper that looks like this:

 

[slabMan]

Yep. I will be renting a splitter this week. I really want an Eastonmade Ultra. I also have a Shark Tank idea for a wood subscription service but that's a whole other thing.

Those Eastonmade Ultras are nice and fast with a big deck on them. The log lift feature should be low priority for you since you probably have no issues with lifting the rounds you deal with, and conveyors are nice[expensive] but if you get a forklift [for your tractor or skidsteer] you can put the IBC tote, apple bin, modified pallet, bucket of the loader, etc. at the end of the deck so the wood falls into it and that way you wont have to burn so much fuel with the conveyor and no extra expensive cost either. Bring the "woodshed" to the wood!

 

[user 188535]

Those Eastonmade Ultras are nice and fast with a big deck on them. The log lift feature should be low priority for you since you probably have no issues with lifting the rounds you deal with, and conveyors are nice[expensive] but if you get a forklift [for your tractor or skidsteer] you can put the IBC tote, apple bin, modified pallet, bucket of the loader, etc. at the end of the deck so the wood falls into it and that way you wont have to burn so much fuel with the conveyor and no extra expensive cost either. Bring the "woodshed" to the wood!

I've also thought of getting an Iron & Oak. That's what my local rental place has.

 

[slabMan]

I've also thought of getting an Iron & Oak. That's what my local rental place has.

I would much rather pay the extra grand or two on an Eastonmade vs the I and Oak. You will make that up in a week of splitting. EM has half the cycle time as the I and O. It also has a wedge that is at the end of the deck so that the wood can slide off into a pile, bin, pallet, ibc, etc without being handled. Do the math on how many times you have to toss the log x logs x 4 if you are cutting quarters and that is a no brainer. I saw that EM wants 13 g's for one of their conveyors, so absolutely I would much rather spend that kind of cabbage on a good used skidsteer/loader with fork attach-Then you can move your "woodsheds" to anywhere on the property, truck, etc--then you can make more cabbage on the side with dirt/gravel/excavation work etc. U get the gist...

 

[pdqdl]

Do solar kilns work year-round though? I've got so many questions.

Yes. Water will always evaporate out of wood when you take cooler dry air, and stir it up with some higher humidity warm wood. It's a matter of physics.

Even if the wood is frozen at -15°, a well insulated solar kiln will still accelerate the drying process. By the way, water will still leap into the air when it is below freezing: this is called sublimation. You probably know of it as freeze-dried.

 

[northmanlogging]

Yes. Water will always evaporate out of wood when you take cooler dry air, and stir it up with some higher humidity warm wood. It's a matter of physics.

Even if the wood is frozen at -15°, a well insulated solar kiln will still accelerate the drying process. By the way, water will still leap into the air when it is below freezing: this is called sublimation. You probably know of it as freeze-dried.

ooohh, proper freeze drying fire wood... using vacuum, would be highly interesting, foolishly expensive but fun to watch

 

[northmanlogging]

The quickest and cheapest results I ever had for "seasoning" wood, was using the abandoned band van for fire wood storage, twas a semi cargo van that had windows all the way around, crack all the windows you could and just toss the green wood in, was dry enough to burn within weeks even in the middle of a particularly snowy PNW winter.
Probably have similar results with one of them cheapo hazard fright green houses.

 

[pdqdl]

ooohh, proper freeze drying fire wood... using vacuum, would be highly interesting, foolishly expensive but fun to watch

C'mon now. I didn't mention any vacuum, although I've been planning such a device for many years. I've got all the kinks worked out, starting with as big a propane tank as can be found. Much cheaper than you think, given how much faster the water boils out of wood when exposed to a vacuum.

The biggest problem is that most vacuum pumps are mechanical, and have a big problem when you add water to the plan. Using a venturi vacuum generator hooked up to a water pump, you could pull an extremely strong vacuum for not much electricity.

 

[northmanlogging]

C'mon now. I didn't mention any vacuum, although I've been planning such a device for many years. I've got all the kinks worked out, starting with as big a propane tank as can be found. Much cheaper than you think, given how much faster the water boils out of wood when exposed to a vacuum.

The biggest problem is that most vacuum pumps are mechanical, and have a big problem when you add water to the plan. Using a venturi vacuum generator hooked up to a water pump, you could pull an extremely strong vacuum for not much electricity.

Hrm... one of the machine shops I used to work at used venturi vacuum tables, I personally didn't trust them, for physics reasons but they do work well, though You might need a horkin biggun to make a large chamber worthwhile, any sort of leak would defeat any vacuum...

the venturi type depended on having available compressed air, compressed air in a machine shop while a necessity has a habbit of failing often, and rapidly... not a big deal if you are messing with a static load like a pile of fire wood, nightmare if you're in the middle of cutting some giant aluminum slab that is magically no longer held down...

A different shop used a pump for vacuum, it worked well with wet conditions, better even cause the fluid would help seal the edges, never had an issue with the pump, bonus being if you had a good seal you could just turn it off and finish your part without all the extra noise... they taint cheap though.

 

[pdqdl]

The problem with any mechanical vacuum pump is that there is a lot of friction, and air is just kind of nebulous to deal with when there isn't much of it. Even when you use pressurized air to create a vacuum with a venturi, it is not particularly efficient. Water, when pumped at a high speed over a venturi is quite a bit stronger, and water develops reasonably high pressure in a pump with relative ease.

Chemistry labs all over the country generate vacuum by turning on the water valve at a sink. They go through a heck of a lot of water, but the vacuum pump never fails. I'd hook a similar water-venturi to a little roller pump, and turn it loose with a 1/2 horsepower motor. Hook it up to a small reservoir of water with enough cooling capacity, a toilet valve to keep the water level right, and you've built a vacuum generation system that handles an unlimited amount of vacuum that doesn't care about high humidity.

Cut off one end of a big propane tank, weld on some hinges and a strong flat flange, build a set of rollers on the floor of the tank, paint it black for more heat capture, and now you have a vacuum dehydrator that should cure a load of wood in less than a week. Obviously, this is a useless plan unless the tank is of sufficient volume to make it worth the effort. Curiously, a small vacuum pump will be effective on an enormous storage tank, providing that the seals are tight.

I would expect to have a tank big enough to accommodate pallets of stacked firewood, so as to minimize the handling expense. Firewood takes a lot of labor, if you don't figure out some way to move it in bulk.

 

[sean donato]

I think you're jumping the gun a bit. You said something about keeping in supply "if you have wood". That's a big problem in of itself. For retail sales you need a constant supply of wood available. How much do you currently have on hand? Plans for replenishing logs? Is your parents place big enough to get a straight truck with logs into and have room to turn around/unload? How are you going to handle the wood? Looking at $25k mini wheel loaders is nice, but a $8k skidloader or tractor will do the same work for a fraction of the cost.
I think you need to figure out some of your logistics and get everything lined up a little better before you start marketing to stores. Good things take time.

 

[StihlPotlicker]

Well. I am thinking about building a solar kiln to disinfect wood. I also have a couple of interested buyers and one guy who will be purchasing my wood once he runs out of his other stuff. I will also be filling out taxes on Tuesday. So now I can work my rear end off to pay some bum to do nothing and some teacher to tell kids lies about how they should not work hard like me. I hope I am not preparing for disaster this fall and winter. Do solar kilns work year-round though? I've got so many questions.

I think you're jumping the gun a bit. You said something about keeping in supply "if you have wood". That's a big problem in of itself. For retail sales you need a constant supply of wood available. How much do you currently have on hand? Plans for replenishing logs? Is your parents place big enough to get a straight truck with logs into and have room to turn around/unload? How are you going to handle the wood? Looking at $25k mini wheel loaders is nice, but a $8k skidloader or tractor will do the same work for a fraction of the cost.
I think you need to figure out some of your logistics and get everything lined up a little better before you start marketing to stores. Good things take time.

how much room do you have to have stacked split wood? can you stack your wood in the North-South direction? with plenty of sun, and stack in single rows so you get plenty of air flow and you won't get fungus growing on your wood. you need inventory built up, bad for business if you run out. I would check out Ohio Wood burner on YouTube. Don't get discouraged, it will take time, ain't gonna be a millionaire overnight, remember Rome wasn't built in a day. keep up the good work.