Thread: Price differential from Lucas operators????

Originally Posted by nifty

Then doesnt that mean if you pay peanuts you get monkeys? Not really but I think Ive said a bit of this before. A bobcat can do the same job as a 950 cat loader, just not as quick , so they charge accordingly . If you care about what you do and how you do it, it may take that bit longer and look less productive, but the end product is exactly how you want it to be, and in the timber game I think that speaks chapters. There are cowboys in this game and they phase themselves out over time, Ive seen a few come and go. It is said that any monkey can cut timber,(almost), but not all know what they are looking at or how to look after it until it becomes a product. So pride yourself on your ability to try and read the logs in front of you and what product can be best recovered. Sell your knowledge so to speek,not just of your machine but of what you are trying to produce for the customer as well. And go the extra mile sometimes and take strip sticks and teach the customer how to look after the timber, youll be surprised how those customers WILL call you back.

my wife recons that the more i am gripping onto noisy , shaking ,dangerous ,screaming machines the more cranky and argumentative I get.Specially when things break and go wrong .Could have a point

Originally Posted by Mathuranatha

my wife recons that the more i am gripping onto noisy , shaking ,dangerous ,screaming machines the more cranky and argumentative I get.Specially when things break and go wrong .Could have a point

I'm the reverse, I get cranky when I haven't been doing this!

Originally Posted by john80

Hi out there... I am a little confused. It seems there are quite a few Lucas owners over here in WA ( Got numbers from Lucas,web and paper.) and a huge diffence in charge out rates. Hourly rates vary from $60 per hour to $130 per hour and per log cube from $160 per cm3 of log to $250 per cm3 of log. We have a property in the Perth hills with some quality jarrah and marri logs on it and I cant understand how tthere can be such a big price difference. All millers sounded like they were competant but how do you know??? Do you go for the cheap weekend warrior, hope he knows what he is doing and if does is under selling himself or do you go for more experiensed but expensive professionals?????
Cheers John

John80. I can understand your question, but I do not have an answer. What you could do is ask Lucas operators for the name and phone number of someone they have milled for recently, like providing a reference.

That's really the only way hey Johnny - get a fella to give some numbers out, if he's above board the numbers will be good, if he's not he won't hand any out unless he's pretty new to things.....

Can't go wrong. I 'm sure it's worked for youself in the past and will continue to do so becauce you are in it for the long run and your ability to feed the family depends on it.
cheers Alan