Timber on this forum is over priced due to sellers greed

[section1]

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

Thanks for this most informative post, it gave me a real good insight as to what is actually involved and it's evidently clear that I had no idea. I honestly believed it was greed but I was wrong and very much so.

[Cal]

I have bought one small bundle from a forum member, good price and something I haven’t come by myself. I have seen many lots of timber sold on here that I thought wow, what a great price, but I didn’t have the funds at the time to buy it. A few years ago I went out and purchased a new chainsaw and an Alaskan mill to make use of a few trees I had access to for free. I sold a little bit of what I didn’t need on gumtree, the people who bought the timber all asked for a discount, I just asked them why? They had no answer for me so I said no, price is the price, I had no need to sell the timber but the cash was nice too. I have milled a few different species now and experienced the blood, sweat and tears that is timber milling. I even milled some logs for a fellow who saw my ad on gumtree, I quoted what I thought was a fair price for me and worked out very quickly that it was too cheap, I had a friend help me on the day and it took 9 hours to get through the milling. It is labour intensive, skilful bloody hard work. Way harder than it looks on YouTube. It has to date cost me around $4000 for my “Free” wood, countless hours, lost hours with family, time waiting for the wood to be usable, etc. I have about two cubes of timber to show for it (rough sawn), I know the recovery rate of what is still drying will be well and truly under that. I still look out for timber, but I am very selective with what I mill because I know how bad my back is and how much of a strain milling is on my body.
So to anyone wanting to give milling a go to save a dollar, I say go for it, you will work out very quickly how little you will save and how hard it is to do. Don’t think for a minute that timber here is expensive or that people are making a killing from it, it is simply not true. To all the forum members here that do it to put food on the table, my hat is well and truely off for you. You earn every cent you profit from it (profit is not really profit though is it?)

Oh and I didn’t get into milling to save money, I did it due to knowing that all of the timber I salvaged would have ended up in a fireplace. I can make use of it in better ways than keeping people warm.

[woodPixel]

Cal, do you have a thread showing your saw and mill? I've been thinking about one for quite a while. Im yet to pull the trigger...

Section1, I didn't think... when I wrote my post about JohnG's costing breakdown it didn't even cross my mind that I may have sounded facetious or condescending. It absolutely was not intended to be that, in any way. Please accept my apologies if I offended you. I was simply retelling a story in context to this thread and showing another thread/post that I've actually saved as a PDF. I send it (and a few others) as a small FAQ to clients when they get a bit huffy about my costings.

[Cal]

There are some pics somewhere in the milling section when I first got it. I run a husqvarna 395xp, 28” and 44” bars. The mill is one of the Chinese knock off grandberg mills, mine come from Queensland (eBay) works well. A few chains and rails I made up myself from 50x50 rhs and framing pine. It does what I need it to do. The only thing about the 395 I’m not happy with is the chain tensioner is at the front of the saw, I had to drill a hole in part of the mill to access it. Otherwise I would have to take the mill off to tension the chain each time. I added an auxiliary oiler to the mill that drips on the bar nose too. I was using it on the weekend, didn’t take a pic though.

[Cal]

Found the pics, bit more recent than I thought.Here’s the link A little bit of milling

[woodPixel]

Everyone loves the Husky 395XP. I suppose for $2250 it must be a mighty beast indeed. The Granberg Alaskan looks excellent. Thanks for the tips.... saving saving....

[BobL]

I was really into chainsaw milling between 2007 and 2010. I was lucky to befriend a Tree Lopper who gave me access to heaps of unwanted logs and he also allowed me to use his 5 acre yard in an industrial ares to mill and store the timber.

Over those 5 years I built 4 chainsaw mills and lots of associated milling gear, ended up with 9 chainsaws, and milled over a 100 logs during that time. In 2015 the Tree lopper mate bought a 35" wide cut Bandsaw mill and I used that to mill timber for his nature playground contracts in 2015/16 and also milled a few logs for myself. I haven't be able to mill for about 2 years due to health problems but I am really keen to get back into it as soon as can.

Since 2007 I posted thousands of pics on WWF of the milling gear I made and logs I cut and they were all lost in the great picture wipeout. I posted almost the same set of pictures and posts on the Arboristsite site in the US but their pics got wiped out as well. BUT their mods gave every one who wanted the ability to reinsert their pics. I reloaded about 10% of mine as I was constantly getting PMs from folks who want the pics. If you want advice about chainsaw milling in general then the Arboristsite is definitely the place to go. I set up the "Milling 101" sticky and reloaded most of my pics in that thread. Most of the members are North American so the major focus is on softwoods but there are a fair few Aussies as well so you get a decent coverage of our timbers. If you find one of my posts (I also post under BobL) my signature has links to most of the mills and gear I made. In the Milling 101 sticky I posted a lengthy post on how to improve the standard Granberg style mill.