Timber on this forum is over priced due to sellers greed

[FenceFurniture]

I think it might be time to let this one go. Your first set of arguments were dismantled pretty quickly, your new ones aren't doing much better.

Absolutely agreed. Leading with your chin is one thing, but to keep leading with it after the jaw is broken is really not very clever at all.


As for this:

Mods please delete this thread

....my only regret is that someone didn't reply quoting the original post which could then not be deleted by the OP. If a post is as outrageously incorrect as this one appears to have been then it deserves to be exposed (as this one was) and not deleted.

nothing to say

That may have been the smartest post *in quite some time*. Perhaps time to live it?

[Beardy]

Ok I read the OP before it was deleted. He obviously has rethought his point and removed it

Apart from everyone getting pleasure from berating him, is there any point in continuing with this line of attack?
I don’t think it does the forum any favours

Just saying

[Mobyturns]

Ok I read the OP before it was deleted. He obviously has rethought his point and removed it

Apart from everyone getting pleasure from berating him, is there any point in continuing with this line of attack?
I don’t think it does the forum any favours

Just saying

Certainly would be nice to add a positive intent to replies.

It is also good to take stock, a reality check at times, which the OP has shared with us. I really hate to see high quality timber go up in smoke, but again there is only a limited market seeking small lots / offcuts. I would be nice to purchase in huge quantities like some turners are forced to do - a truck load of Banksia pods, ah only day dreaming again.

I truly appreciate the efforts other woodies go to so that we can share in the beautiful timbers they enjoy in their regional areas. I will continue to support them by purchasing small lots that I can use.

There is of course the option for those who are cash strapped to swap timbers through the Marketplace / Swap section of the forum. The only impost is then the postage & your time.

[section1]

I guess I can’t the accept the fact that timber prices are going through the roof. I also can’t accept that most of you support these price rises. Maybe once upon a time you worked wood and now you’ve become arm chair woodworkers to give a damn.

I fear the direction we’re headed is that woodworking will become for the privileged only.

These price increases we have seen over the years has nothing to do with demand but mostly to do with lack of demand because of our ongoing shutdowns of our manufacturing sectors. Try to sell to China and Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam or how about the US at our current prices and they’ll tell you to stick it. You may justify and make claims all day and night without a break on how well you’ve pulled my claim apart, but the facts are that timber in Australia is expensive. It is beyond reach of the average person on an average wage, just like the current housing market. Our youth, your kids and mine, if they haven’t purchased a house by now will have to wait until the camel passes through the needle’s eye. When the housing market prices were going through the roof, no one stood up to make a protest because they couldn’t see past their noses for the greater good. The same thing is happening with timber. The great Aussie saying “she’ll be right mate” doesn’t wash anymore.

I am proud to say that I have many times over put my money where my mouth is. Every tool I sold on this forum has been priced to what I thought would be affordable and not what the current market dictated. Every furniture and clock I made entirely by hand was also priced accordingly. Even Charles Hayward wrote back then in England that price of timber is too high.

Uber has come on the scene and the entire global taxi industry plummeted because they offered to drive people for less. If drivers weren’t willing to do so then Uber would be up the creek. In the end some are making more money weekly than they were when working for Joe blogs. Imagine the same shakeup happened in the timber industry. Businesses would begin to flourish and new ones would be opening in droves which would lead to mass employment including apprenticeships being offered once more.

Imagine we thought of others for once and not ourselves.
A quick question Camphor is considered a weed yet it’s sold at stupidly high prices, why is that? Give me the same milling equipment and I bet I’ll slay those prices in half. Why? Because I’m willing to do it, you’re not.


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[elanjacobs]

So go do it.

Buy your equipment, buy your logging permit, buy your insurance, pay for storage, pay for transport, pay for fuel, pay employees and everything else and see how you do. Oh yeah, and pay the bank unless you have the capital to buy it all outright.

Or are you just as much an armchair woodworker as the rest of us?

Australia is an expensive place to live, for better or worse, and for all the complaining we do about it, it's a damn lot better place to be than most of the world.

I think I'm done here.

[section1]

Good for you.


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[Gunnaduit]

Not all is lost with this thread. I'll admit that until this controversy I had never seriously looked at the timber market on this forum. I always went to the local speciality merchants.

Now I realise there's some great deals here at WWF and I'll be looking here first in future, for my speciality furniture timber needs. Cheers fellas.

[Sturdee]

I think I'm done here.

My thoughts exactly.

Peter.

[John.G]

All I'm going to say is that the price of production keeps going up: parts and reapairs, property prices and rates and rents, wages, electricity, fuel. And I can tell you for a fact that no-one in the timber industry is making much money - from logging contractors through sawmills to timber merchants we're all feeling the squeeze. Theres a lot of difference between turnover and profit.

If you use the "how many cartons could you buy for the money" yardstick there are 32 less cartons of XXXX to the cube of wholesale Queensland Maple then there were 20 years ago. So when someone starts telling me the price of timber is too high all I think is "not high enough". Remember this at the next election when you're picking which idiot is going to be handling your economic future.

[Kuffy]

As a general rule, when ever I need to take money out of my own pocket and give it to someone else, it is "expensive". Timber merchants, Coles, petrol, rates etc etc
When money is being put into my pocket it is "never enough". wages, furniture commissions, dividends, interest etc etc.

But at the end of the day I have been a real woodworker since I was 18, currently 37yrs old, only ever earned minimum wage or very slightly better. I still managed to buy a house. I still managed to put food into my belly, some might say a little too much food. And I still manage to continue to be a real woodworker.

So for all of your fixes Section1, what the hell will it achieve? The continuation of my being a real woodworker? Things DO NOT need to change for that to continue. It only takes a little bit of woodWORK

[Wongo]

I have bought a lot of wood here and I love it. Happy with the price I buy, not happy with the price I don't buy. It is that simple. And just because I am not happy with the price it does not mean the seller is greedy. Buyers can be pretty greedy too you know.

[BobL]

A quick question Camphor is considered a weed yet it’s sold at stupidly high prices, why is that? Give me the same milling equipment and I bet I’ll slay those prices in half. Why? Because I’m willing to do it, you’re not.

Give me? Err, sorry you have to cash up for or take out a loan to buy the milling and transport gear, you have to rent or buy storage space so it can dry over a few years, unless you pay for a kiln and its high running cost. As EJ has already stated there are heaps of other stuff to pay for. You then have to continually answer the phone to the cheap ass tyre kickers who want a massive discount or free timber and then don't even both to come around and kick the tyres.

Trees can indeed be weeds but the cost of the actual timber is almost trivial because the bulk of the cost of timber production is in the actual production.
I think you should maybe come back after having milled a few 100 logs and tried to make a living out of this activity before making your claims.
I've milled a few hundred logs and they were obtained all free from tree loppers, but there's no way I could make a living out of the timber that came out of them.
My hat goes off that can.

[woodPixel]

...and I`ll have the Lamborghini paid off in a little under 200 years

Ah, Lace Sheoak, I love you!

[woodPixel]

I think this discussion can go nowhere without those who may not have had the absolute privilege of reading JohnG's post on urban milling and some of the costs and efforts involved.

It is a rich source of deep illumination on the realities of "expensive timber".

Take the time to adsorb it. I keep it ready for ALL of my clients who want to question costings: What my log is worth

[rustynail]

Fifty years in the timber industry probably makes me a little bias. Then again, maybe it makes for a better understanding.
Timber is no longer a cheap resource, for all sorts of reasons. This was inevitable and as consumers we have to accept it.
Fortunately, there are still opportunities to source cheap material, but it won't be found in retail outlets - they are way too far down the chain for that.
Even the middle man is struggling to make ends meet these days and when that happens it shows things are not good in the hood.
Even though timber is marketed as a renewable resource, it changes the picture when you add a maturity/millable date to the statement.
Timber milling is an expensive process, at all levels of production. Machinery cost, labour, 60% recovery (at best), drying, transport and storage and you have a final product demanding a bit of serious consideration when it comes to pricing.