Thread: Where you get your logs?

This is a matter of who you know, not what you know.

They're one of the few things that do actually grow on trees.

Log supply is your limiting factor to milling, if u can get hold of logs u can mill and make money

There is a lot of millable timber going to waste in the suburbs of most of our major cities. Tree loppers are constantly looking for someone to offload their logs on. The bigger the log, the more PITA it is to them. Many exotic trees were planted in the early days and are now reaching their useby date for all sorts of reasons. One problem here though, you are running all over the place for logs. As these are urban trees, there is usually some very interesting, if not dangerous, hidden treasures. I have "milled"
fencing wire, rabbit traps, horseshoes, bullets, dog chain, false teeth, knife blades, a butchers steel,shoeing rasp, billy lid, cow or horse bell and part of the tree out of a camel saddle. Admittedly, some of these things were in outback timber but urban stuff carries the most steel.
As Sigidi said, log supply is the most important thing. Everything else is pretty much in your control. But no logs means no milling.
For cutting non exotics it is best to cut to order- particularly hardwoods. Exotic timber requires seasoning, so stacking for the drying period would be necessary anyway.

I have my own tree lopping business.... Question for me is where do I get my timber customers from? Have logs, don't have enough customers for my potential sawn products. No offence but most wood turners don't have $$ for green blanks and that is my other problem, not having a kiln to dry timber for other customers. Ps I haven't had rustynails vast array of interesting objects in my logs.... touch wood.

Ben,
if you have a good bandsaw that will cut wide slabs you should get a lot of work cutting logs up for other people . I have customers that bring logs 200k to be put through my mill. Once established you will find that people will offer you logs.

I haven't found a lot of metal over the years but I have a metal detector and scan anything suspect.

cheers
Steve