Thread: Question on pricing

Originally Posted by old pete

Hi Travis,

It is essential that E. obliqua is cut strictly on the quarter sawn orientation if you want to produce anything of better value than framing timber due to the tendency of this species to surface check on any backsawn orientation face during the drying process.

If you are happy to saw the structural grade then it has to be straight.That also usually dictates quarter sawing. It is normal practice to quarter logs of the dimension you describe to release the growth tension before boarding off. It may or may not be necessary to then apply facing cuts to return the quarters or flitches sawn from the quarters to a straight face. Both these operations either cannot be done with a portable mill or some form of difficult compromise has to be adopted that usually compromises the sawing orientation of the timber.

I suggest you start the feasibility study exercise by working out exactly how you are
going to use a Lucas or a Woodmizer to cut all the timber in the log on the quarter (except in the wings obviously). Then you really need to take a look at the amount of loss you will suffer to sawdust in the operation. In a modern band mill set up for quarter sawing this is typically 12% to 15% and recovery from green log volume to green timber volume (nominal basis) is in the low 30% area.

I think a more realistic way of conducting the feasibility study is to calculate the net finished value of the timber out turn. You would need to value checked back sawn appearance grade timber and bowed structural timber at pallet grade rates ie $200 per m3 ex mill.The net take home value is the only real determinant of how much you can realistically charge for your services. If you PM me I will supply you with a realistic mill gate value of obliqua logs of the size you describe to feed into the calculations.

Good Luck

Old Pete

I better sell my lucas then if I can't cut staight eucalypt, I must of imagined peeling off large quanities of staight usable hardwood for the last ten years

Originally Posted by old pete

Hi Travis,

It is essential that E. obliqua is cut strictly on the quarter sawn orientation if you want to produce anything of better value than framing timber due to the tendency of this species to surface check on any backsawn orientation face during the drying process.

If you are happy to saw the structural grade then it has to be straight.That also usually dictates quarter sawing. It is normal practice to quarter logs of the dimension you describe to release the growth tension before boarding off. It may or may not be necessary to then apply facing cuts to return the quarters or flitches sawn from the quarters to a straight face. Both these operations either cannot be done with a portable mill or some form of difficult compromise has to be adopted that usually compromises the sawing orientation of the timber.

I suggest you start the feasibility study exercise by working out exactly how you are going to use a Lucas or a Woodmizer to cut all the timber in the log on the quarter (except in the wings obviously). Then you really need to take a look at the amount of loss you will suffer to sawdust in the operation. In a modern band mill set up for quarter sawing this is typically 12% to 15% and recovery from green log volume to green timber volume (nominal basis) is in the low 30% area.

I think a more realistic way of conducting the feasibility study is to calculate the net finished value of the timber out turn. You would need to value checked back sawn appearance grade timber and bowed structural timber at pallet grade rates ie $200 per m3 ex mill.The net take home value is the only real determinant of how much you can realistically charge for your services. If you PM me I will supply you with a realistic mill gate value of obliqua logs of the size you describe to feed into the calculations.

Good Luck

Old Pete

Sounds like a very fair statement
regards inter

I'm not trying to start a bun fight, but I've had no problem back sawing Yellow stringy up here.
So the problem may come in a common name, is my yellow stringy the same as Travis's yellow stringy - DanG common names

Travis, all that and no one has given you a price. For a job such as you're describing, where there is a good log dump and little extra handling, such as is the case at my own yard, I charge $200 + GST per log cube for myself, the mill and an offsider. If you're doing it as a hobby you might avoid the GST

Don't forget that housekeeping is a big part of the process, as is maximising yield, which can mean spending a fair amount of time working out how best to cut.

I can't offer an opinion on E. Obliqua as I've never cut it. most of the "stringy" species up here are quite stable and very strong, with no huge tendency to check, although yellow stringy can do so quite badly in some specimens.

I rarely quarter-saw for structural product - there's simply too much waste and fluffing around. Better to back it off and strap it tight in my view.

Good luck.

Allan, I'm sorry to hear of your family troubles. Having been through it, I can only offer you my very best wishes.

Hi Folks,

Just adding to earlier posts. It is always potentially confusing to use the local names for Euc. species as they don't carry forward from one State to another. In Tasmania Stringy Bark is the common name for Eucalyptus obliqua.

There are four Eucalypt species used in Tassie used for the production of appearance grade timbers plus a few bits and pieces that are only milled for structural purposes.

All Eucalypt appearance grade timber in Tassie is quarter sawn and always has been. This is because of the strong prevalance for the species here to suffer severe surface checking on the back sawn face during drying. There is also a problem with Tassie back sawn timber exhibiting spring as the growth stresses are released. Both these undesirable characteristics are exhibited more strongly in regrowth timber than old growth.

As you move north in Oz the timber becomes denser and stronger and the above characteristics tend to disappear somewhere about mid NSW. Then you can back saw with some impunity. This sawing orientation delivers much better recovery from the log and also the premium of getting wider and thus more valuable boards.

I headed up a project that cost $M1.5 over a 4 year period that attempted to find solutions to the fully controlled kiln drying of back sawn regrowth Eucalyptus obliqua. No commercially viable means of drying this material was discovered. Indeed much of it surface checks and springs straight off the saw on the green mill.

Trust me! I know about it!


Old Pete

Ok first of all Thanks Craig That is what I needed to know, Thanks also to Al.

As for Timber I do not think it is Messmate (eucalyptus obliqua) I think it may be one of the other species of stringy, possibly E. Cephalocarpa, This said there are a lot of trees (Would be easy 200 to 300 if not more) with no branches for at least 12 to 18 metres up them and they are dead straight. The majority of them are in the 450 to 800 mm diameter range with very little taper. With what I have sawn out of them so far there is no real issues with it. I will go out there again tomorrow and take some photos.

I have cut enough timber in my lifetime for these to not be an issue. the issue is getting the bank to give me the money to buy a mill.

G'day Travis,

What you are asking is a very difficult balancing act to perform. If you average the log sizes at 600mm dia, 3m long and say 200 logs you are talking around $34k worth of income based on $200.00 per log cube.

Calculation is Pi - 3.1416 x average radius squared x average length x number of logs x price/log cube - $200.00 - adjust if your situation is different.

Now I've lost jobs working on that formula because of volume, cut sizes and handling costs.

You'll need someone to tail - move cut timber to the usable or scrap piles and the assistance of the timber owner to get the logs under the mill. That may vary the $200 figure depending on what you go for.

A lot of people will baulk at that total figure and think what am I paying for - it's my timber to start with. A key in that is being able to produce a quality of sawn timber that they are happy with. The greenness of the timber will determine that to some degree and while experience and knowledge will help, you are starting out as a novice - still there myself!

The likes of Sigidi, weissy boy and others as well as the Lucas mob are invaluable resources but in the end you have to work out what you want to do - at a good rate you might get 4 log cube a weekend cut and it'll take you the best part of a year to do the job - again adjust as you think necessary. That might seem conservative but you will be learning as you go - I've had to and still am 6 months down the track.

I love my mill and would say buy one if you can but think about where you want to be 5 years down the track - will it help you build on where you are now?

FWIW

Jamie

Barnsey, at $200 a log cube, the rate for finished product is about $500 to $600 a cube. If anyone reckons they can do better than that for select grade timber, they're welcome to try, even if they factor in the $100 or so a log ton they might get paid for good log by a fixed mill.

But, yeah, I've lost jobs at that rate when the customer decided they wouldn't do anything at all rather than recover what they could.

Travis, perhaps cover your own backside and charge by an hourly rate. A couple of the Lucas boys around here charge out at $100 per hour for slabbing and $90 per hour for cutting boards.Does the customer want you spending your time working out log volumes or cutting timber anyway And more than that, what do you want to be doing. At the end of the day owning a portable sawmill is fun, but it makes the money, not owning logs or trees and think you have a gold mine so before commiting to such a project make the log owner do the homework, not the other way around

Originally Posted by nifty

Travis, perhaps cover your own backside and charge by an hourly rate. A couple of the Lucas boys around here charge out at $100 per hour for slabbing and $90 per hour for cutting boards.Does the customer want you spending your time working out log volumes or cutting timber anyway And more than that, what do you want to be doing. At the end of the day owning a portable sawmill is fun, but it makes the money, not owning logs or trees and think you have a gold mine so before commiting to such a project make the log owner do the homework, not the other way around

I wouldn't wan't to pay $100 per hour for a newbie on a Lucas to learn, I would be happy to pay for $200 a cube.

Portable Lucas Millers with experience can charge the big bucks becauce they can produce usable timber and lots of it.

There is going to be less pressure someone who is just beginning if they charge by the cube, fairer all round, when he gets the hang of it, well thats a different matter, you could then charge by the hour, produce good volumes and everyones happy

Here are some pics to give an idea of how much is down etc.what they show is by no means all of them. There are also some of the bark leaves and flowers for those who know more about stringy barks than me.

I have no idea what species are there, but I can tell you they look like small ordinary trees (bumpy, defects) from what is shown there, you might get fencing material out of if your lucky & they are of a durable species.
regards inter

I'm afraid I'm with Inter on this, Travis. If those shots are representative, I'd be very reluctant to take the job on with a lucas, simply because the owner will not be happy with the outcome or the yield.

If I was to take them on it would only be at an hourly rate and the owner would be doing all the handling.

There are ways to maximise your throughput with small logs, such as running two at once, but I usually reserve that for the last few stragglers rather than trying to do the whole lot that way.

The photos may give an unrepresentative view, of course.

Fair comments, I will say that looking at the photos and being there it does look considerably different, but its a given that there is a quite a bit of small log, but there is a lot in excess of 450 mm and larger, and would only look at milling the stuff which is bigger. As for the lumpy comment I would disagree and the majority of the logs that would be milled are dead straight without a lump or branch for at least 12 to 18 metres.

At the end of the day I appreciate all your input as I would need to make this job pay off to be able to get myself into a mill. If it is not going to do that then I will have to look at other ways and means. Not having worked on a lucas before, I have to rely on the opinions that I get from people who do use them. I am planning on taking a trip up to lucas mills next week so hopefully I will be able to learn more then and get more of an idea about the feasibility.