so, then what?

[Ed Roland]

OK then. Im a climbing arborist in S.C. I bill my services @ $65 an hour. So thats $520 a day and I've been happy giving the wood away to anyone who would take it. Now im reconsidering my stance. If i purchase a csm and begin milling: to whom do i sell the rough lumber and at what price? Species specific? What sizes are best? I work 80% of the time on Pinus taida and liquidambar. These worth anything. Great forum by the way.

 

[thompson1600]

You would have to see what rough lumber goes for in your area. Then you have to determine if your going to kiln dry it or air dry it or sell it green. All has a bearing on value.

Not sure on the 2 species you mentioned (pine and sweetgum), but as a woodworker I am looking for Walnut, Cherry and some of the more exotics. I pay anything from .50cents a bdft up.

Having also used a CSM, I do know, you won't make money with it. Since I'm getting free wood and using my time, I can cut the wood with a CSM and be ahead. If I had to do it for money, no way. I'd be losing in the time it would take. You could buy one of the nice band mills, but then you have 30-75 grand invested and have to almost do that full time to make any money.

Not trying to discourage you in the business venture, but it may not make you any money. If you do it for fun, it's fulfilling though. It's great when you take that piece of wood you cut from a log and make a piece of furniture with it.

Tom

 

[Ed Roland]

Well, i guess i can purchase the alaskan from northern with the rails for about $400 and make some nice 6x6 out of the pine and start splitting the hardwoods for sale as btu material. I already have an old, but nice running, 393 i keep for stump cuts. Im just looking to increase my bottom line.
thanx

 

[sawyerDave]

wood marketing

you say that you work mostly with pine and sweet gum- pine is worth about $1.00/bf sweetgum probably similar. I find it hard to make anything at these prices using the LT-15 woodmizer. Where I have made the most money is with niche marketing exotic woods. Dont get me wrong there is always value in labor, but by cutting more highly valued lumber, you can write your own ticket so to speak. For example, I put a free an in a local paper, trying to sell some marginal cherry (the first tree I ever experimented with), ended up selling one board for $9.00. Then this guy calls up looking for turning blocks, and it got me to thinking. I had seen a guy selling turning blocks at a woodworking show for what I thought was an exorbitant amount- and getting it. So I put a price of $10.00/bf on some of that cherry that I had in 4 inch slabs. Got $200.00 for about an armload of what I was thinking was firewood! I guess my point is consider this as a hobby, join a few clubs, give away some of your product, and hang in there, and the customers will come.

 

[woodshop]

Not trying to bust your balloon woodweasel, but you're just not going to make any money milling logs with a csm. How much is your time worth? A csm is not designed to come anywhere even close to production milling. Unless you have a specialty market as mentioned in other posts, most wet lumber right off the saw is not worth a lot of money. Take the time and effort to sticker it, dry it (correctly) and clean up one or two sides in a planer, and THEN you start to work up to that $5/bd ft range, and that is for high grade (FAS) furniture hardwoods like white oak, cherry, walnut. When you get down into the lower grades (#1 common), hardwood is relatively cheap.

Not saying you might not have a limited local market, maybe woodworkers in your area, but again, how much is your time worth?

 

[thompson1600]

My suggestion would be to use the CSM for personal wood, and continue to give away the wood to other people that want to mill it. Wish more tree services would do that. See them cutting up nice logs everyday. If you do you may even get some nice furniture out of the deal.

 

[Railomatic]

You could buy one of the nice band mills, but then you have 30-75 grand invested and have to almost do that full time to make any money.

Not trying to discourage you in the business venture, but it may not make you any money. If you do it for fun, it's fulfilling though. It's great when you take that piece of wood you cut from a log and make a piece of furniture with it.

Tom

This is not the case nowadays, there is some superbly made cheaper mills on the market that would suffice, there is a great litle working mill which can handle 24 inches by 18 feet, and it only costs around $ 4500.00, and another which can handle 18 inches for around $ 2500.00, you can see them here at www.alaskabandsawmills.com.

 

[thompson1600]

This is not the case nowadays, there is some superbly made cheaper mills on the market that would suffice

That is true if your doing it as a hobby or building your own cabin. If your trying to do it as a business venture, I beg to differ. The smaller manual mills still need lots of equipment to load the logs or get the logs to the yard. Then you have to manually push the mill through the log. Then you have to dry them or sell the lumber green for pennies per bdft. Then you have to hire someone and get the wood graded if you want to sell it and make any money.

Remember he's already working a full-time arborist job. He wanted to make a little extra money. I just think he'd be doubling his working time, but would not even come close to doubling his cash income.

If you want to get into the milling business you need big equipment to make any money, you need to be pumping out highly graded wood in large quantity. Unless you are cutting some extremely exotic or specialty cuts.

If it's a hobby or "retirement gig" then the other smaller stuff is great. Same with chainsaw mills. You can't do production work, but they sure are nice for the weekend guy to use wood that would otherwise be chipped up.

Once you've built up some inventory from doing your own cutting, then you can sell some and not worry about making the payments on the equipment. But with air drying you have to wait at least a year before it's near ready to sell. Even then, for ungraded lumber your going to only get a very small amount of what that lumber would retail out for.

Sorry, just my opinion as someone who buys lumber every week. (and cuts as much as I can with a chainsaw mill for personal use)

Tom

 

[Railomatic]

You are correct in part, but there are good kiln driers that can produce good quality timber, that can turn around the load in about fifty days
and cheaply, study this link http://www.arrowsmiths.co.uk/timber.htm.

You can still turn around a tidy sum from doing/milling your own stuff at weekends, air dried timbers here in the UK are sought after, top cabinet makers are always on the look out for it and it brings three times the money compared to the forced/quick dried poorer quality lumber from big outlets.

My mill can easily turn around 2000 + fbds a day, yes its a manual rigg, but not hard work at all compared to a chainsaw outfit, she simply glides along on a set of roller bearings, this also gives you complete feedback for when the blade is dull, unlike the driven systems which blast their way through and sometimes ruin bands.

Which would pay for itself sooner a mill like mine at $ 4500.00 dollars, 2000 +fbds a day, or a decent sized chainsaw mill and saw at $ 1500.00, at the weekends.

If one can get timber through the day job, stack it up cut it use it, sell the by product for whatever amount, I'm living proof of this and I'm laughing all the way to the bank, bigger and more is not always the best, its what you make the best of what you have got that matters.

I must say though I really like your furniture, especially the walnut futon's and the Shaker end tables, nice and plain but functionable, keep up the good work.

Davy.

 

[infomet]

Been there...have done 40K BF with hired Woodmizer (NOT my favorite mill).
I'd first look at partnering with someone who owns a mill. Work out a deal to take him the wood and get a share of the proceeds. You'll see soon enough if there's a market. I'm amazed at the amount of wood that is not useful...warps, checks, etc seem to come from nowhere! Careful stacking and covering are essential. Good customers are animal people who need stalls, floors, gates, etc.. They don't need great quality, just durability. White oak if there's moisture, red inside for stalls, benches, etc. A good market for low priced wood may be more profitable than a small one for exotics. The hobbiests really use very little of anything.

I'd love a mill, but have to finish a house/garage first. Wish I had bought one 10 years ago, when I started!

 

[treebucker]

I guess my question would be "How much time are you willing to invest in this?"

If you are making 5-600.00 a day you will be hard pressed to equal your income return per hour milling lumber unless you invest in a $30-45k hydraulic mill, kiln, training, inventory, etc., then go at it full time. Looking for a career change?

I know there is the specialty market but not everyone who tries is going to crack it.

Anyway, I wouldn't discourage you from getting a small mill for hobby use/producing lumber for your own projects. This will provide you some profit from what otherwise could be down time.

If you are worried about giving away the logs then you may want to charge a small amount for any you have to transport to your yard.

BTW - sweetgum yields two types of lumber: sweetgum and (more valuable) red gum.

 

[Ed Roland]

Gentlemen, your remarks have wisened me. I am miopic in my scope of the project. I hate to start busting all my logs into BTU material. Sometimes i put some LARGE trees on the ground so I thought i might mill it on site with a csm, load the board onto the truck to be stored in the yard to dry and the customers would flock to me for my rough cut lumber. @ 10 minutes plus per cut and the fact that on site I bill @ a high rp/hr as an arborist. I guess Im better off with a 27 ton splitter and a csm as a hobby. Thanks for the input guys

 

[Adkpk]

Hey, weasel, don't give up so fast. Sounds good to me. I talked to an arborist the other day who wants me to mill some of his wood for the sake of saving the wood and also to sell it back to the customer. He said, go down to "Turf and Timber" and buy yourself a band mill. Stop turning all your wood into sawdust with that chainsaw mill. I'm thinking about it. $2500 for a mill that cut 18" logs. I'll cut bigger stuff up with my csm into 18" cants. I am on your planet with thinking, why waste the wood. I make money landscaping but in the slow periods like winter I can mill till sun goes down and pile wood up all over town and selll as I make a name for myself. In the meantime improve my furniture making skills and then retire as a furniture maker with wood up the wazool.
If you have room I say buy a csm now, cut logs up into cants. Store them stickered. In time get a band saw and in the future you'll have a gold mine of wood to turn into boards for selling or building something and the good feeling you didn't burn it all up. Keep the faith, wood ain't getting cheaper.

 

[Ianab]

One thing you could do with a chainsaw mill is cut specialty stuff that you come across in your arborist work. Stuff thats worth more than $1 bdft off the saw. Big live edge table slabs, especially out of walnut. Beams and mantle slabs, figured wood, burls, stuff like that. If the wood is a bit knotty and shows nice figure (which is more likely in an urban tree) then it may be more desirable than a clear piece.
A 2" thick slab from a big walnut crotch might sell EASY for $100, you cut several of them in an hour, thats where you could actually make a CSM pay.

As you will have a decent chainsaw already the mill isn't a big investment and you can pick the best 2% of the logs you come across and just pass on the rest. Maybe go in with someone with a higher production sawmill to cut up the boring 'normal' logs

Cheers

Ian

 

[Railomatic]

Hey, weasel, don't give up so fast. Sounds good to me. I talked to an arborist the other day who wants me to mill some of his wood for the sake of saving the wood and also to sell it back to the customer. He said, go down to "Turf and Timber" and buy yourself a band mill. Stop turning all your wood into sawdust with that chainsaw mill. I'm thinking about it. $2500 for a mill that cut 18" logs. I'll cut bigger stuff up with my csm into 18" cants. I am on your planet with thinking, why waste the wood. I make money landscaping but in the slow periods like winter I can mill till sun goes down and pile wood up all over town and selll as I make a name for myself. In the meantime improve my furniture making skills and then retire as a furniture maker with wood up the wazool.
If you have room I say buy a csm now, cut logs up into cants. Store them stickered. In time get a band saw and in the future you'll have a gold mine of wood to turn into boards for selling or building something and the good feeling you didn't burn it all up. Keep the faith, wood ain't getting cheaper.

You have got my drift here, with both a CSM and a band mill you can convert just about any timber any where it falls.
I have a small home made band mill 25" and a very large CSM 50", I normally take both of them to the site/towing the whole rig on the back of the pickup, my quad bike sits in the back of the pickup, when I get to the other end unhook the mill, take off the the quad, tow the mill with the quad to the site, do the job, take the timber back to the pickup upon the mill, a little hard work, but who's frightened of that if its for yourself.

I'm not saying you can get rich quick by doing this, but if the tree is say an oak or a sweet chestnut, its well worth the effort, waste not want not, it all comes in handy instead of buying in timber which has had lots added to the normal price, oak in the stick here in the UK brings £ 6.00 per cubic foot for the best straight logs, once its planked and dried its work at least £ 18.00 and if quarter sawn and air dried its at least £ 30.00 cube.

What I'm trying to say is, you can make decent money from fallen stock or bought sticks, and still do your day job, what you get at weekends is a real bonus, and with a DIY or home made band mill, you can have fun and make it pay at the same time.

 

[treebucker]

So compare the dollar return of firewood -vs- lumber in your area. Take, for example, a log that has a 32" small end, 10' long, using the Doyle rules scales to 490 bf. If it has a butt end of 42", and is white oak, it weighs ~4985 lbs. This log is about the size needed to yield a cord of green white oak. A cord of green white oak weighs ~4,942 lbs. So a cord of green white oak sells for how much in your area? And 490 bf. of rough-cut green white oak, mill-run, sells for how much?

I can't help but believe that you can process the firewood much quicker than the lumber. This is also holds true when it comes to drying.

If you still have the bug I would suggest you consider a used swinger w/slabber or w/separate csm. It may not be the best for smaller logs but offers the best portability and production number combo. If you find success at this you can always add a stationary band mill later.