Thread: QLD Maple log

Originally Posted by Lenz

Working at a job, the owners told me the people behind them want a large qld maple removed.

I am looking at getting it felled, and loaded onto a truck, to take back to my place to slab. And make a lot of furniture!

From memory, it would be roughly 1m wide, and the trunk maybe 3-4m long.

Just looking see if it will be financially viable. How much is "Plain" Qld maple worth? Im going to do the sums on plain qld maple, anything nicer will be a bonus.

Mick

I wouldn't be slabbing in until winter,and the log MUST be treated for borers until then..they LOVE Qld Maple,and are very active at the moment.If you don't treat it,they will render it worthless.And make sure who ever mills it knows what he is doing..alot of clueless cowboys out there.Good score and good luck...MM

Mill run maple, 27mm GOS, lengths 600mm and up in 300mm increments, widths 100mm and up I'd expect around 1500 a cube GOS or $2k KD. (Mill gate price FNQ)
Add $150 per cube for 40mm GOS in 75mm and wider, or $250 a cube for 55mm GOS in 75mm and wider.

Having said that, if you come to the door with cash in hand on a friday GOS price might be $1200. If you come to the door cash in hand on the last friday of the month it might be $1000 - or it might not. If you come to the door with a regular order for 10 cube a month you get a different price too.
As with any business sometimes you need to discount stuff out the door to actually have a door to discount from.

Originally Posted by John.G

Mill run maple, 27mm GOS, lengths 600mm and up in 300mm increments, widths 100mm and up I'd expect around 1500 a cube GOS or $2k KD. (Mill gate price FNQ)
Add $150 per cube for 40mm GOS in 75mm and wider, or $250 a cube for 55mm GOS in 75mm and wider.

Having said that, if you come to the door with cash in hand on a friday GOS price might be $1200. If you come to the door cash in hand on the last friday of the month it might be $1000 - or it might not. If you come to the door with a regular order for 10 cube a month you get a different price too.
As with any business sometimes you need to discount stuff out the door to actually have a door to discount from.

Not worth milling for that sort of money John...pulling trees from wet tropic forests is expensive,and time consuming,and often dangerous,in that there are often many more 'hang ups' than in regular scrub..grossly under valued mate..for first class Qld Maple $4000 or $10 a super g.o.s ,mind you,Qld Maple can be bloody boring too...MM

Originally Posted by MAPLEMAN

Good point John,living so far from the market does make it hard,and transport costs make selling your product even harder...that's why you get the vultures from the city come up and pay you peanuts for your hard earned wood,knowing full well you gotta eat next week,only to take it south and make a 10 fold profit ,makes me and want to punch dry wall ,its not fair mate.You've got the best wood on this planet in your shed and you have to sell it for nothing in order to survive,it really is a shame...MM

Neah mate, I'd not begrudge any agent the right to make a living either. The reality of it is that any of the large agents have a fortune tied up in their yards at any point, and they have to put up with the headaches of retail. Me, I'd rather go cut the next tree up then spend the same time sorting through timber thats already cut to find one board: timber agents do earn their money, i have no doubt of that.
Freight costs aren't that bad - I can usually deliver anywhere on the direct route between Townsville and any major southern center quite reasonably so long as you don't expect a truck to divert to far off line and you have a forklift to unload it with, or take enough at a time to make it worth diverting a truck. It's the "out of his way for one small package stuff" that pushes freight costs up.

The real issues lie with demand, and there's a couple points there.
.Joe Average now shops at Amart to buy his dining suite - he spends a couple hundred bucks and takes home a table and chairs and in 6-10 years when it falls apart he goes and buys another. There is limited demand for fine furniture in Australia: people no longer buy stuff with the expectation of passing it down to the next generation. That would be okay - I think it's probably always been that way except that now cheap furniture tends to be either MDF or imported, and often both. Solid timber cheap furniture made domestically no longer exists.
We can't compete in this country with imported furniture at the middle part of the trade. Wages costs make that impossible. On a recent trip to Brisbane I saw a "made in Burma" dining suite. It was very well made furniture in solid teak and I have no doubt that it will be around in 50 years. Thing is... that well made table and chairs was for sale at the retail point for a price that would not have covered the cost of building the chairs in Oz.
There are issues with the supply side domestically. If you go trawl through the websites of some of the major southern timber merchants you'll find they're pushing American White Oak, and have been for several years. Partly thats been favourable exchange rates, but a lot of that is that they can get a consistent supply. Because they can get consistent supply they can guarantee delivery, which from a designers point of view is important. It takes about a cube of timber to do a kitchen, multiply by so many times to do a restaurant, or a hotel lobby or whatever. I'd hate to be hanging by the nuts waiting to get enough silky oak to trim out a house (well not really i've got it on the floor, but you get my point) Scarcity does not push prices up... when it comes to commercial level design and installation it often means that the sale doesn't get made at all.
Wholesalers no longer order minor species at all. Joe Average consumer recognises Cedar, Maple, Oak, Blackwood, or Cherry. He doesnt know the timber from any other timber, but he knows the name. Outside of places like this (site) no-one knows what Rose Alder, Quandong, Damson Plum, Bolly Silkwood etc etc is. I tend to leaf through interior design and "better house" books to get an idea of market trends. White timbers are back in favour in places - but today we shall carve Silver Quandong into fascia boards... I can sell H3 fascia, I'd starve waiting for a sale of SQD cabinet timber. If it goes F14 it'll make H3 scantling timber... if not it'll go for H3 batten or fascia. I sell some of the prettiest roof batten in the world

It is what it is, and so long as I can eat...

Originally Posted by MAPLEMAN

I wouldn't be slabbing in until winter,and the log MUST be treated for borers until then..they LOVE Qld Maple,and are very active at the moment.If you don't treat it,they will render it worthless.And make sure who ever mills it knows what he is doing..alot of clueless cowboys out there.Good score and good luck...MM

Most defininately, lot of fella's out there push their gear way past its useable limits and have trouble because of it

Originally Posted by MAPLEMAN

Don't be too sympathetic towards the 'dealers' John,they don't deserve it.Cost me around 7 k to shift a semi load from N.Q,it is not a cheap exercise.Your correct in saying it is hard to compete with overseas imports,however,in time people will return to purchasing goods that last a generation or two,paying for stuff that falls apart after a few months is a false economy.You would be surprised what the 'average joe' knows ,the internet has increased every ones level of knowledge and intellect.All about self belief and a strong and vigorous marketing plan..get these obscure timbers out there for all to see! You will always be treading water with your current mindset 'it is what it is'..MM

Self belief and a strong and vigorous marketing plan will help, but may not solve the problem. A commercial timber mill requires steady through put to remain viable. It would seem to me John is well aware of this. Unfortunate though it is, that decorative timber is finding its way into construction until such time when consumers become aware of what they are missing, the mills can not be expected to sit on vast quantities of furniture grade timber while we wait for the public to come to their senses. Marketing is the dealers job, not the mill. The mills job is to produce product in the most efficient method possible, retaining a high standard of quality at the lowest possible cost. That in itself is a full time job.
Over the years, a lot of damage has been done to our industry; The constant bickering about what should be locked up and what should be put to the sword, renaming of timbers to suit the market trends to an extent where the name is indicative only. Not to mention the blatant substitution of species that now exists in the market place.
It is all very well to have grand plans, but in the meantime, there is a mill to be run.

Originally Posted by MAPLEMAN

Baloney,the millers need to become dealers and sell direct to the public if they are going to survive.I know of one particular mill in F.N.Qld,that is doing that now..MM

Many mills down here have done exactly that. Unfortunately, it places the entire load back on the mill and in no time they come to realize the agent did have a part to play after all.
Having worked in both camps, I can appreciate both parties problems and limitations. Doing the lot yourself will mean a much greater work load and a further extension of risk. A good mill and agent relationship can work very well if both parties are pulling their weight. And that aint baloney.

Not pretending I know anything about milling or timber marketing, but it sounds exactly like the issue my uncle in law has with his grapes, watermelons and oranges. He gets paid $10 a TON for oranges.

Hmmm.

Even after all the moaning they (the farmers around him) still couldn't organise themselves into a farmers market or even a bulk shipping combine. After hearing about "plans" for 15 years they are still planning...talking and complaining.

MM has the right idea, in general, I feel. The price of timber in Canberra is stunning. Some is eye watering in price. It's so high that it's far cheaper to order pallet loads from Qld and Tas...I've even had 3 big boxes from WA. About 4 cubes in all.

If millers could get together and organise a frontGateTimber dot com style of bulk cooperative AND get a courier like E-GO with their platinum delivery system cranking....get everyone's stock in one damned website rather than 15 hard to find places, then you might find it take off. You can all keep and ship your own stock....

Marketing on this board, a few magazines, TV ads is expensive, but if you divide it up into 10 ways it would be cheap.

This isn't cutting the middleman, it's marketing and raising awareness. Hell, you can't do worse than the current guys here, for they do ZERO advertising.

Lenz, mill that log!!!!!!

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